Apocalypse Soon (Kyler Knightly and Damon Cole Book 2)
Page 6
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
It's 1866. The Civil War is over and no-account grifter Carson Lowe pays a visit to the bustling Gold Rush city of San Francisco. But instead of quick riches he finds big trouble in and under a fledgling Chinatown, when a Taoist immortal threatens to wake the … Dragon by the Bay!
Is it a western? Or a kung fu story with all the earth-shaking action of a Shaw Brothers' flick? It's both, as well as a homage to John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. Weighing in at 22K words, this lean novelette delivers a fistful of East on West mayhem sure to crack a few smiles—and ribs—before it's over.
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SCORCHED NOIR
A collection of Southwestern crime tales.
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
The Border … an alkaline limbo between two worlds, where desperation and violence loom like the ever-present sun. Scorched Noir takes a blistering look at crime along the desert corridos, the creosote bushes and dead arroyos where only scorpions thrive. Eight tales in the triple-digits by hardboiled author Garnett Elliott. From organ smugglers to drug-crazed brujas, this is one collection of Southwestern noir you don't want to miss. Caliente!
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Novellas by Garnett Elliott from the "DRIFTER DETECTIVE" series:
THE DRIFTER DETECTIVE
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
Jack Laramie, grandson of the legendary US Marshal Cash Laramie, is a tough-as-nails WWII vet roaming the modern West. He lives out of a horse trailer hitched to the back of a DeSoto, searching out PI gigs to keep him afloat. With his car limping along, Jack barely makes it to the sleepy town of Clyde, Texas, where he stops at a garage. While waiting for repairs, he accepts a job from the sheriff, pulling surveillance on a local oilman allegedly running liquor to Indian reservations in Oklahoma. When Jack runs afoul of several locals and becomes dangerously close to the oilman's hot-to-trot wife, he wonders if the money is worth his life. Garnett Elliott writes in the best hardboiled tradition of the masters and turns out a tour-de-force novelette, clocking in at a trim, fighting 9k words. Take a chance on this new series … and experience a Jack Laramie beat.
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HELL UP IN HOUSTON
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
Houston has been called "a sprawling city of astronauts and cowboys, in the middle of a swamp." And now Jack Laramie, rural-wandering PI, is headed up that way after his faithless Desoto blows its radiator. Jack's got a bit of a past with the city, in the form of a Cajun PI named Lameaux-a guy who mixes his "investigations" with organized vice. So Jack decides to lay low, holing up in a swanky downtown hotel called the Fulton. It's a splurge after sleeping in an old horse trailer night after night, but Jack figures he deserves a break. Until the Fulton's grizzled house detective shows up with a proposition … Jack's way out of his league this time around, and when he discovers a blackmailing scheme involving a famous industrialist, he finds himself bumping gun-barrels with the Federal Government. Survival's going to require throwing the PI code out the window. And some quick thinking. Join Cash Laramie's hardluck grandson in this second installment of The Drifter Detective series. At around 15K words, it won't take too long—just remember to bring your Colt.
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THE GIRLS OF BUNKER PINES
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
Jack Laramie's back in the third installment of the "Drifter Detective" series. This time he's parked his horse trailer "beyond the pine curtain" in East Texas, where he makes the acquaintance of a troubled Korean War veteran-and a pair of vivacious burlesque dancers, with their hands in a long con game gone wrong. Atom Age paranoia meets booze, buckshot, and buxom babes, as Jack struggles to save a wayward soul who doesn't want saving, and scraps with an unlikely enforcer from the Dallas Mob. At over 17K words, this is the longest Drifter yet, with riveting glimpses of Jack's past, including the last moments of the B-17 Black Betty, and the depredations of Stalag Luft Three. One warning: this is also the hardest-boiled, and features an ending not for the faint of heart.
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DINERO DEL MAR
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
Jack Laramie finds himself in the middle of a rural beauty contest that's as crooked as a busted fiddle. Things get worse from there, and a chance encounter in the Corpus Christi drunk-tank leads to a new case-on Texas's dazzling Padre Island. A big, old mansion full of scheming rich folks, lawyers, and psychics is just the beginning. Jack survives the 'trip' of his life, but is his craftiness a match for the privileged upper crust? Dinero Del Mar runs about 24k words, the longest Drifter to date, and features an ending that will forever change the series. Don't miss it!
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Look for more short stories by Garnett Elliott in these BEAT to a PULP collections:
"Ransom and Red Fingers"
in BEAT to a PULP: Round Two
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
Smoke 'em if you got 'em, then set your jaw and steel your stance, 'cause BEAT to a PULP: Round Two is here! It's all meat, no filler in this red-raw-and-oozing collection of twenty-nine tales of pure pulp action. You'll find aliens, gangsters, drifters, mountain men, private dicks, gun molls, loners, misfits, drunks, thugs, booze-hounds, and more, all brawling in the pages of Round Two. This powerhouse compilation doles out the genres, from hardboiled crime, western, and noir to sci-fi, fantasy, literary, horror, and more.
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"Phantom Black and the Big Wide Open"
in BEAT to a PULP: Superhero
Kindle edition
What makes a superhero? Someone with special powers … Ordinary people doing good deeds … Anyone with sophisticated technological gadgets and incredible agility? Superheroes can spring up from the most unexpected people in the most unusual places, and BEAT to a PULP: Superhero has gathered some of the best hardboiled and noir crime stories with a superhero bend.
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Other titles from BEAT to a PULP:
THE BIG UGLY
Jake Hinkson
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
Ellie Bennett is an ex-corrections officer who has just served a year inside Eastgate Penitentiary for assaulting a prisoner. She's only been out for a day when she accepts a strange job offer from the head of a Christian political advocacy group. He wants her to track down a missing ex-con named Alexis. Although no one knows where Alexis has gone, it seems like everyone in Arkansas is looking for her-from a rich televangelist running for Congress to the governor's dirty tricks man. When Bennett finds the troubled young woman, she has to decide whether to hand her over to the highest bidder or help her escape from the most powerful men in the state.
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THE YEAR I DIED SEVEN TIMES
Eric Beetner
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
In this one-of-a-kind novel, amateur investigator Ridley tests the limits of what a man will go through for true love. With the help of trained assassins and a stoner best friend, Ridley is thrown head-first into a dark world of drugs, kidnapping and violence. As a detective, he's not the best. Not even close. But Ridley is determined to find his girl—or die trying.
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WAKE UP, TIME TO DIE
Chris Rhatigan
Kindle edition (also available in paperback)
Delusions of grandeur. Furby with an assault rifle. More convenience store robberies than ten seasons of Cops. This is Wake Up, Time to Die. Sometimes funny, sometimes disturbing, and always filled with bad coffee and cheap cigarettes, these stories highlight the weird crime side of Chris Rhatigan's repertoire.
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Offering short story collections and novellas in a variety of genres. See what's new in our catalog.
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