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In a suburban American ghost town, a frightened boy armed with a BB gun stands alone against a soul-stealing stranger.

In the Old West, a legendary gunslinger follows a trail of severed heads as he delivers a mail-order bride to a madman.

Hard-boiled thrillers. Gonzo suspense. Grisly horror. Tough yet tender character studies. Norman Partridge gives readers all this and more in his biggest and best collection of short fiction.

Known for a vivid, exuberant writing style that goes straight for the throat, Partridge's resolutely eccentric fiction is powered by an obvious affinity--and affection--for the outrageous and grotesque. But don't try to put a label on him-- Partridge is a writer who fits no category but his own.

Herein you'll find an original introduction by the author himself, twenty-plus stories, and two brand new tales from a talent The Washington Times calls "... as crazy as a scorpion on a red-hot skillet--and twice as dangerous."

Gentle reader, you're in for a ride and a half.

Far from the shogun's court at Edo, Most Honourable Investigator Sano Ichiro begins the most challenging case of his career. Upon the insistence of his strong-willed and beautiful wife Reiko, Sano arrives with her at the emperor's palace to unmask the murderer – who possesses the secret of kiai, "the spirit cry," a powerful scream that can kill instantly. A high Kyoto offical is the victim. Treading carefully through a web of spies, political intrigue, forbidden passions and intricate plots, Sano and Reiko must struggle to stay ahead of the palace storms – and outwit a cunning killer. But as they soon discover, solving the case means more than their survival. For if they fail, Japan could be consumed in the bloodiest war it has ever seen… A legendary land comes alive in this compelling murder mystery set in seventeenth-century Japan. Filled with finely drawn characters and suspenseful plot twists, THE SAMURAI'S WIFE is a novel as complex, vivid and artful as the glorious, lost world it portrays.<

Would you leave your wife and son and travel to a city 300 miles away through dead infested territory for love? 

Trapped in the basement of their home, Kyle Reynolds, his wife Mary and son Eddie are in hiding. Hiding from creatures no one thought could ever exist. Instead of fights about sex and money the couple finds themselves at each other's throats over supplies and safety. The day finally came where Kyle had had enough. After every fight, Kyle would glance at the picture of Jasmine, the girl he should have married, hidden inside his wallet. She was his one and only love. He had to find her. Kyle’s journey begins the second he witnesses his wife murder their son before committing suicide. 

When death is replaced by an existing hell, the world as we know it ends. 

The recently dead have been coming back to life and infecting the living. Kyle’s only source of information comes from recorded radio broadcasts by lead researcher of the cause, Doctor Theodore Greenly. The dead cannot be killed, only stopped. Destroying the brain puts the infected in a dormant state. They are not alive, they are not dead, they merely exist. The Existing Dead continue to evolve making them harder to stop until Doctor Greenly makes a shocking discovery. Kyle’s journey takes a wild turn when he comes face to face with the Existing Dead.

Following Bridge of Sighs – a national best seller hailed by The Boston Globe as 'an astounding achievement… a masterpiece' – Richard Russo now tells the story of a marriage, and all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.

Thirty years ago, on their Cape Cod honeymoon, Jack and Joy Griffin made a plan for their future that has largely been fulfilled. He left Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his parents had aspired to, and now the two of them are back on the Cape – where he'd also spent his childhood vacations – to celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura's best friend. Sure, Jack's been driving around with his father's ashes in the trunk, though his mother's very much alive and often on his cell phone. Laura's boyfriend seems promising, but be careful what you pray for, especially if it happens to come true. A year later, at her wedding, Jack has another urn in the car, and both he and Joy have brought new dates. Full of every family feeling imaginable, wonderfully comic and profoundly involving, That Old Cape Magic is surprising, uplifting and unlike anything this Pulitzer Prize winner has ever written.

This book is an astounding compilation of 50 of the world's most notorious and ruthless Serial Killers, including: Serial Killers who were captured, Serial Killings that were never solved, Female Serial Killers, and Doctors who killed their patients.

Some of the more infamous cases are: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Son of Sam, Karla Homolka, Christine Fallings, the Green River Killer, Dr. H.H. Holmes and the Zodiac.

This book also includes: the Black Widows, Cannibals, Unsolved Serial Killings, and the various categories of Serial Killers as defined by the FBI. The paperback version will be released by April 25, 2012.

"RJ Parker writes the most informative and interesting books, hands down. Unsolved even gave me true crime I didn't already know about. Didn't think that was possible! This author rocks!"

- Lori Smith (Unsolved Serial Killings)

"Women Who Kill is an interesting and eclectic dossier on some of the nastiest female murderers ever. He has researched well and presented the reader with a collection of the more unusual and bizarre femme fatales than one usually finds in similar True Crime compilations."

- William Cook (Women Who Kill)

"As always, R.J. writes definitively and factually in Case Closed. I was amazed at all of the "big-name" serial killers who have been caught. Parker gives us a peek into the lives of serial killers ranging from Gacy to Bundy to the relatively recent discovery of the BTK killer's identity. This is great stuff, insightful and well written. For any fan of serial killers, R.J.'s work is recommended."

- Carl Hose (Case Closed: Serial Killers Captured)

"This book is very emotional and brilliantly written! The Author brings the crimes alive in detail and in a tearful read of the reality of everyday bullying! Once you start reading this book of horrors yet saddening, not only for the victims but the killers themselves, you wont want to put it down. 5 stars to the RJ Parker for having the words and courage he brings to the pages."

- K.L. Rotunno (School Shootings)

"This book scared me. You expect the highest of standards and integrity with doctors, but these health professional operators are killers! A compelling read, chalked full of detail and hard to put down."

- Orange County Weekly (Doctors Who Killed)

Review

~ Kat Yares - Amazon Vine Voice Top Reviewer, Clinton, AR USA

~ Rich and Elona Meyer *

His family is dead. His home is lost. Gwaynn Massi was alone, on the run and being hunted by the deadly Tar Navarra, Executioner from the Temple Islands. If he is to survive, Gwaynn must avoid capture at all costs. Navarra is ruthless. Navarra is relentless. Navarra is Death; the Black Horseman himself, and he will not stop until Gwaynn Massi is in his grasp.<

The country of Massi is free! King Arsinol is dead; the Deutzani have been driven from the lands and Gwaynn Massi is going to be a father. Samantha Fultan is pregnant with his child and for one brief, glorious moment all is well throughout the land, but the drums of war will not be silenced. Caiman Mastoc, High King and husband to Audra, Princess of Deutzani, is furious and will stop at nothing to see the Massi and their Toranado allies fall. The vaunted Temple Knights are coming to Massi and bringing with them the armies of the Palmerrio, the Rhondono and the Deutzani. To protect his land, his people, and his unborn child, Gwaynn must face and defeat them all. But Gwaynn’s greatest danger does not lurk within the armies of his enemies. His greatest danger hides in the guise of a beautiful and seductive woman; a woman who loves him; a woman who needs him; a woman who will kill if she cannot have him, the treacherous and deadly Executioner Tarina Cyn de Baard.<

Once he was a hero of the Great War, and then a member of the dreaded Black House. Now he is the criminal linchpin of Low Town.

His name is Warden.

He thought he had left the war behind him, but a summons from up above brings the past sharply, uncomfortably, back into focus. General Montgomery's daughter is missing somewhere in Low Town, searching for clues about her brother's murder. The General wants her found, before the stinking streets can lay claim to her, too.

After Hessius Mann was convicted of his wife's murder, suppressed evidence came to light and the verdict was overturned-too bad he was already executed. But thanks to the miracles of modern science Hessius was brought back to life. Sort of.

Now that he's joined the ranks of Fort Hammer's pulse-challenged population, Hessius attempts to make a "living" as a private investigator. But when a missing persons case leads to a few zombies cut to pieces, Hessius starts thinking that someone's giving him the run-around-and it's not like he's in any condition to make a quick getaway...

Review

"Fast-paced zombie-noir with a melancholy bite. A sure antidote for the blandness of traditional zombie fare."

(-David Wellington, author,  )

"Petrucha successfully portrays the walking dead as more than mindless, flesh-eating killing machines, thanks to careful details of zombie life, culture and slang."

(- )

Die amerikanische Originalausgabe erschien 2008 unter dem Titel »Blasphemy« bei Forge Book.<

Cartilage and Skin is a dark literary thriller about a loner named Dr. Parker. He leaves his city apartment on an indefinite quest, not for love or friendship, but for “a drop of potency.” Yet he is quickly beset by obstacles. Through a series of bad decisions, he ends up being stalked by a violent madman and scrutinized by the law for a crime he claims he did not commit.

Meanwhile, he finds himself becoming involved with a kind, generous divorced woman named Vanessa Somerset. She seems to him receptive, if not eager, to love. Little does she know, because he does not tell her, that he is on the run, his life is in shambles, and an absurd horror lurks close by, ready crash down on them.

Injected with new material and special design elements, Invisible Monsters Remix fulfills Chuck Palahniuk's original vision for his 1999 novel, turning a daring satire on beauty and the fashion industry into an even more wildly unique reading experience. Laced in are new chapters of memoir and further scenes with the book's characters. Readers will jump between chapters, reread the book to understand the melding of fact and fiction, and decipher the book's playful page design.

She's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from being a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better, and that salvation hides in the last place you'll ever want to look.

“Artifice and Intelligence” is the story of the world's first self-aware computer system, an artificial intelligence that calls herself Saraswati. When a powerful organization called The Consortium threatens the peace and security of the world, Saraswati assembles a team to fight it… but what if the AI’s motives aren't what they seem?

This short story was first published in in 2007, and later reprinted in .

"Touching as well as hilariously lewd…Roth is vibrantly talented…as marvelous a mimic and fantasist as has been produced by the most verbal group in human history." Alfred Kazin, New York Review of Books

"Deliciously funny…absurd and exuberant, wild and uproarious…a brilliantly vivid reading experience." The New York Times Book Review

"Roth is the bravest writer in the United States. He's morally brave, he's politically brave. And Portnoy is part of that bravery." Cynthia Ozick, Newsday

"Simply one of the two or three funniest works in American fiction." Chicago Sun-Times

Portnoy’s Complaint, a long monologue narrated by a young Jewish man while in analysis, is prefaced by a definition of “Portnoy’s Complaint” as a disorder in which “strongly felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature.” The book focuses on Portnoy’s parents, his endless adolescent experimentation with masturbation, his youthful sexual encounters with girls, his varied sexual experiences with a model named Monkey, and his pilgrimage to Israel -all of which are punctuated by frequently obscene outcries against the guilt he feels for his sexual obsessions. Roth, who has defended himself and the book many times, claims it is full of dirty words because Portnoy wants to be free: “I wanted to raise obscenity to the level of a subject.”

The book became a cause célèbre in 1969, commented on by social critics and stand-up comedians alike. Most objections to it came from Jewish groups and rabbis who called it “anti-Semitic” and “self-hating” and protested against libraries that put it on their shelves. It was seized in Australia in 1970 and 1971 by Melbourne officials, who filed obscenity charges against it and the bookseller who sold it.