Short Stories/Novellas

Her name was Crimson... and she was a legend. A beautiful pirate queen who plundered the 16th Century Caribbean sea by day and confronted voodoo and vampires during the steaming tropical nights. Cast in Dark Waters is an original dark adventure tale by Ed Gorman and Tom Piccirilli

Clay was an honest New York City cop driven to bring down the mob and make his city a little safer, even when it seemed like nothing he did made any difference. He always played by the rules until a two-bit junkie hit man destroyed his family and left him for dead. But Clay won't let himself lie down until he gets one last thing: revenge

Chase is a performance poet with a history of mental illness who's spent time in jail and hospitals while trying to deal with traumas from his past. A cult figure in New York City, he's as well known for his mania as he is for his poetry. During a reading, Chase sees a woman he believed had died on the ward due to the cruelty of a brutal guard—is she a hallucination, a ghost, or a killer who faked her own murder? Chase tries to battle his own demons, dementia, and insane desires long enough to face up to his heinous enemies before they destroy what's left of his mind.

Are you the one who helped him kill the angel? Twenty years of repressed anger and memories. A bitter knot of hatred that binds and divides two friends. The dark secret that fuels and devastates them both. He killed it. I only helped him to bury it. Eddie's doing his best to get by, but every day the good fight just gets harder. And now there's a new burden to shoulder. Gray - his best friend and nemesis in literature, romance, and life - has landed in a bizarre mental hospital, known for its radical treatments, because Gray couldn't bear the weight of an unspeakable trauma. The last time they met, Gray almost killed Eddie, but it seems that all is finally forgiven. Tonight, there's a wild hootenanny up at Gray's house. The nuthouse. And Eddie's invited. This thrilling novella, a sleeper hit of 2007, will knock your dear socks off and have you scratching at the door for yet more Piccirilli. Our stunning hardbound signed edition is limited to 450 numbered copies and has a full-color wraparound dustjacket, foil-embossed cover, and an illustration for every chapter.

When a nameless man awakens to find his blood-spattered brother passed out in his trailer it sets off a chain of painful, hard-hitting events that tests family loyalty and shows the savage impact of a father’s dark legacy. Fast-paced and packing a visceral punch, All You Despise will keep the reader anxiously turning pages all the way to its unexpected conclusion.

Cryer once had another name, but he can't remember it. The man he used to be was stabbed in the head by an assailant. After months of catatonia Cryer awakens in a mental facility to find that his former life is almost completely forgotten. He knows his wife and daughter have been murdered - he saw them die moments before his own assault - but his shattered mind is incapable of retaining their names. Or even his own. Now Cryer is free again and trying to track down an elusive killer through his own unknown past. But how do you investigate the murders of your loved ones when you can't remember them? When you have no idea who your friends or enemies were? Where you lived and worked? And what secrets you might have once had and failed to keep? And how is he supposed to deal with the little man who keeps crawling in and out of his skull? Cryer is a nobody now, but that won't stop him from finding a vicious murderer and making him pay. Praise for The Nobody THE NOBODY is a dangerous exploration into the mind and soul of man. Piccirilli’s beautiful prose allows us to take a peek into the abyss of our consciousness and shine a light into those places that warmth has long ago forgot. You cannot read this book and not be changed. --Larry Roberts - Bloodletting Press Clichés: can't live with 'em but, as I discovered when I read this remarkable novella, you can't live without 'em. Part vigilante procedural part hard-boiled PI yarn and part examination-of-post-loss-survival weepie, THE NOBODY is Tom Piccirilli at his uncompromising best. The dialogue is so crisp it's like Leonard on speed, and the second and third pages are the literary equivalent of being hit in the face with a shovel. A roller-coaster ride? You bet. A page-turner, even? Yep, no question. A palpable atmosphere, larger-than-life characterisation and impeccable plotting? They're all there. Like I said - clichés: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. --Peter Crowther - PS Publishing A revenge tale almost Mythic in its simplicity. Shocking, tragic, beautifully written, insightful and nuanced, mournful and uplifting - everything we've come to expect from Tom Piccirilli, done to perfection. From its brutal opening scene to its heartfelt final pages, The Nobody is Pic at his finest. --RJ Sevin - Creeping Hemlock Press

He's nameless, faceless, and has nothing left to lose - and now he has a gun! Alone except for his beloved bulldog, Churchill, a man who's failed at his career, his marriage, and his own simple hopes makes his way across the American landscape and the spectacle of his own bitter past, heading home to his brother when he knows there's no home left for him. Tom Piccirilli brings us a story for our current struggling times, taken directly from a broken heart. It is full of realism, grit, and a depth that gives voice to the fears most of us can barely imagine. The terror of loss, the overwhelming dread of failure, the horror of missed-out, mediocre dreams. And the all-too average explosive rage.

The Last Deep Breath follows Grey, a drifter on the search for his foster sister, who showed up for the first time in ten years with a knife in her side, then vanished without a trace. Grey winds up in Los Angeles dealing with manipulative actresses and scummy agents, hoping to find some clue as to what happened to her after she dropped out of a porn career he didn't know about. Praise for The Last Deep Breath "By now I'm convinced that Tom Piccirilli is genetically incapable of delivering a tale that's anything less than immaculately conceived and beautifully rendered. The Last Deep Breath is the latest evidence, a tough yet tender noir that cuts to the heart of what sibling bonds are all about. It ricochets around like a bullet in a cinderblock room - you can never be sure where it's going to go, but you know it's probably going to hurt before it's done." --Brian Hodge, author - WILD HORSES, MAD DOGS. "The Last Deep Breath is an absolute gem of a crime novel, with prose so dead-on and moving, you'll be laughing and gasping, often in the same sentence. Tom Piccirilli is already one of the big guns in crime fiction, and proves here that he may be the heir to Elmore Leonard." --Jason Starr, author - PANIC ATTACK, THE CHILL.

Jenks and Hale aren't friends, partners, or ever next door neighbors anymore. Not since they each lost their jobs and had their homes foreclosed. Not since they lost their wives and kids and whatever stability they'd fought for in the world. Adrift on the streets of New York, Jenks' dark path seems to parallel Hale's step by step. After Hale is found nearly dead beside the corpse of a nine-year-old girl, and soon after commits suicide in a mental hospital, Jenks decides to find out just what the hell happened. What happened to Hale and the girl, what happened to the wayward American Dream, and what happened to his youth and forfeited hopes. Because whatever happens to Hale happens to Jenks just a few months later.

Employing the unique, darkly humorous, and powerful noir voice that is his trademark, Piccirilli demonstrates why he's become a must-read author for admirers of both crime and horror fiction. LOSS concerns a failed writer working as a handyman in an old Manhattan apartment building with a strange history and numerous oddball tenants, not all of whom may be what they seem. The penthouse is owned by a bestselling novelist and his wife, the nameless narrator's longtime unrequited love, who soon goes missing. Is she dead or somehow trapped within the endless corridors of a lair full of twisted memories and half-forgotten ambitions? This is a haunting noir-ghost story fusion that not only spotlights the fear of missing out on one's greatest hopes and romantic dreams, but also features such memorable characters as Mojo the talking monkey and the corpse of the real inventor of aluminum foil.

After his brutally violent cop father kills his mother in a heinous fashion on Christmas day, a young boy is raised on the streets of Brooklyn to become the deadliest hitman for the Mob. But even while he carves out a life and reputation for himself dispatching enemies of the syndicate, the hitter is planning his revenge against those who helped to make him what he is. From the cruel mob family to his own murderous old man, who sends threats and taunts from the safety of his jail cell. As the time approaches when his father will be free again, a Christmas nightmare of bloody retribution begins to unfold. Employing the unique, darkly humorous, and powerful noir voice that is his trademark, Piccirilli once again demonstrates why he's become a must-read author for admirers of both crime and horror fiction.

CLOWN IN THE MOONLIGHT is based in part on the true story of Ricky Kasso, the so-called Acid King, who murdered a friend in the Northport woods back in '84 claiming Satan told him to do it, then proceeded to bring high school classmates to view the mutilated body for days afterward. Occult, hardboiled, and noir matters enter the mix as a nameless drifter teaches Ricky and friends what the true nature of hell is really all about. Extras include the first chapter of Tom's forthcoming Bantam hardcover THE LAST KIND WORDS (due out June 5), the first chapter of his digital-only dark fantasy novel NIGHTJACK, and the short horror story "Shadder." UPCOMING NOVEL: "THE LAST KIND WORDS" From International Thriller Writers Award winner and Edgar Award nominee Tom Piccirilli comes a mesmerizing suspense novel that explores the bonds of family and the ways they're stretched by guilt, grief, and the chance for redemption. Raised in a clan of small-time thieves and grifters, Terrier Rand decided to cut free from them and go straight after his older brother, Collie, went on a senseless killing spree that left an entire family and several others dead. Five years later, and days before his scheduled execution, Collie contacts Terry and asks him to return home. He claims he wasn't responsible for one of the murders--and insists that the real killer is still on the loose. Uncertain whether his brother is telling the truth, and dogged by his own regrets, Terry is drawn back into the activities of his family: His father, Pinsch, who once made a living as a cat burglar but retired after the heartbreak caused by his two sons. His card sharp uncles, Mal and Grey, who've recently incurred the anger of the local mob. His grandfather, Old Shep, who has Alzheimer's but is still a first-rate pickpocket. His teenage sister, Dale, who's flirting with the lure of the criminal world. And Kimmy, the fiancée he abandoned, who's now raising a child with his former best friend. As Terrier starts to investigate what really happened on the day of Collie's crime spree, will the truth he uncovers about their offenses and secrets tear the Rands apart? Walking the razor-sharp edge between love and violence, with the atmospheric noir voice that is his trademark, The Last Kind Words demonstrates why Tom Piccirilli has become a must-read author. “Perfect crime fiction . . . a convincing world, a cast of compelling characters, and above all a great story.”—Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of 61 Hours FIND MORE FROM TOM PICCIRILLI, including the novels NIGHTJACK, A LOWER DEEP, A SHORT RIDE TO NOWHERE, and THE NIGHT CLASS, The FELICITY GROVE MYSTERIES, including SORROW'S CROWN and THE DEAD PAST,as well as his collection of short fiction FUTILE EFFORTS & a series of "Noirellas," including Thrust, You'd Better Watch Out, The Nobody and more. Tom Piccirilli joins other best-selling mystery and horror writers at Crossroad Press. Search CROSSROAD PRESS to find titles by Bill Pronzini, William Bayer, Bill Crider, Richard Christian Matheson, John Skipp & Craig Spector, and many, many more!

Mal’s redneck cousins from Moon County come calling because Grandma Callie, who raised him in the same "witchy ways" as his sister Lulabelle was brought up. Although he left home to try for a normal life, he's still got the gift, and right now Moon County needs all the help it can get. The dead are coming back – out of the muck, shallow graves, sinkholes, and deep green morass. There’s a new lifeform rising in the swamps, reanimating the dead, and Mal and Lulabelle turn out to be brilliant scientists as well as powerful backwoods witches. Pale Preachers is well-stocked with Piccirilli’s trademark brand of dark humor, quirky characters, shocking violence, and some of the best dialogue this side of a Tarantino film. As is usually the case with Piccirilli's work, he may be looking at a familiar trope like zombies, but he’s determined to twist said trope into some fresh, unfamiliar shapes. Here, he cherry-picks the tried-and-true zombie concepts to whip up a new breed of undead. These zombies are a little faster and a little smarter than what you might expect, and they might be here because somebody thought that magic and science would make good bedfellows. They might also be the kind of vessel that certain dark malevolent forces would snatch up to use for their own purposes.

Tommy Flowers is a deep cover FBI agent and mob hitter, wracked by guilt, trying to keep himself and his gangster family safe at the dawn of the zombie Armageddon. He’s cursed with fevers and visions of Lucifer, demons, and God. Is the zombie apocalypse God’s ultimate will or can Tommy somehow put a stop to it?

Only one gig had gone bad in Royce's twenty-year career, but it had ended just about as badly as possible, with his back broken and him in jail. A specialist said it would be a year before he'd walk again, if then. Royce took this news as a personal challenge and let his concentration begin to harden. He fixed his will and figured he'd be on his feet in six months. He set a clock inside his head and started the countdown. At night, when everyone else was asleep, Royce practiced with the two-inch blade he had smuggled in with him. He'd always been good with a knife. Now Royce just had to get back on his feet and stay alive, and then he could have his revenge...