Tom Piccirilli in Digital from Crossroad Press

Apr 12, 2012

I’m reposting this and pinning it to the top of the front page so it will be visible. Tom Piccirilli is fighting a battle right now with brain cancer. While we don’t begin to understand how horrifying this must be, we do understand when it’s time to help. All proceeds from sales of any book or audiobook by Tom Piccirilli, published by Crossroad Press, will pay 100 percent to the author for at least the remainder of the year. Remember that sales directly through the Crossroad Press store pay the most – but that sales on the major retail sites might help his visibility and sustain income through hard times to come. Thanks for looking, and for helping.

David Niall Wilson / David Dodd / Patricia Lee Macomber
And the staff and associates,
of Crossroad Press

CLOWN IN THE MOONLIGHT

Available Exclusively at Amazon.com (DRM FREE – you can convert it for your Nook)

Buy at Amazon.com OR if you are a PRIME member, download free.

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.”

YOU’D BETTER WATCH OUT

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

Buy Unabridged Audiobook from Audible.com

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.

A LOWER DEEP – A Self Novel

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

A man known only as the Necromancer and his demonic familiar named “Self” wander the spectral highways of the countryside, incurring the wrath of both heaven and hell – and facing the curses of the damned. But it’s a figure from his past that may drive the Necromancer into a hell even he cannot escape. Jebediah DeLancre, the leader of the Necromancer’s old coven, has created a new coven, an evil band determined to use the black arts for their own hideous ends.

The Necromancer is forced to return to his home, a place haunted by memories, where years earlier his original coven was destroyed, and where Danielle, the only love of his life, met an awful death. Together with Self, the Necromancer must battle not only his former master, but the members of the new coven and the jealous ghosts of his old one…all the while taunted by the possibility that Danielle may return from the dead.

PENTACLE: A Self Collection

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

PENTACLE collects the classic tales of an unnamed Necromancer and his demonic familiar “Self” as they wander the spectral highways of America incurring the wrath of both heaven and hell.

Praise for PENTACLE:

“I was delighted with the assurance of his prose and imagery. The stories
abound with startling and emotive incidents.” –Charles de Lint, The Magazine
of Fantasy & Science Fiction

“While technically horror fiction, PENTACLE has more the feel of mythic
fantasy, with larger than life characters and wonderous events. This is an
odd, unclassifiable and quite enjoyable short book.” –Science Fiction Chronicle

“This is whiplash fiction that takes dangerous curves at 150 m.p.h.”
–Deathrealm

ALL YOU DESPISE

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

Buy Unabridged Audiobook from Audible.com

In All You Despise, Piccirilli’s characteristically lean prose grimly illustrates the high price of redemption and the violent limits of brotherly love.

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.

CAST IN DARK WATERS – With Ed Gorman

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

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.

FRAYED

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

“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.

FUCKING LIE DOWN ALREADY

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

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.

Praise for Fuckin’ Lie Down Already

Jack Ketchum, author of RED and THE LOST: “This is a small masterpiece. It’s said that the devil’s in the details and Tom got all the details exactly right. I always said Pic was one to watch. Fuck watching. He’s utterly there. A voice to listen to and learn from.”

Ed Gorman, author of THE POKER CLUB, THE AUTUMN DEAD and THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: “Short, tight, effective crime fiction. My kind of writing.”

Bill Pronzini, author of SPOOK and STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY: “Hard, hard, hard noir, very well done.”

Al Sarrantonio, author of Moonbane and Orangefield: “A potent mix of GoodFellas and the classic 1950 Edmond O’Brien film D.O.A. A pedal-to-the-metal cops and mobsters roller coaster ride— this story delivers!”

FUTILE EFFORTS

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

“In this disturbing, often grotesque and ultimately mesmerizing collection, Piccirilli (The Cold Spot) reprints 16 stories and 45 poems. Although the star-studded introductions are a nice bonus, Piccirilli’s stories are the selling point, and all are standouts. “An Average Insanity, a Common Agony” is an emotionally devastating tale of a man trying to do the right thing for the sake of an innocent creature. “Alchemy” tells the story of five emotionally stunted people whose discovery of a dead body lets them visit their own dark places (“They weren’t frightened [by the sight of the corpse]. None of us were. It broke up the monotony”). “With an Ear for My Father’s Weeping” manages to be both touching and hysterical. Piccirilli’s unique mix of gore, violence and a literate style bordering on the lyrical help make this collection one that horror fans will relish.”–Publishers Weekly, starred review. With story introductions by Jack Ketchum, Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Simon Clark, TM Wright, Gary Braunbeck, Thomas Monteleone, Tamara Thorne, Ed Gorman, Ray Garton, and Christopher Golden.

LOSS

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

Buy Unabridged Audiobook from Audible.com

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.

NIGHTJACK

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

Buy Unabridged Audiobook from Audible.com

On the day of his release from a mental institution Pace is taken “hostage” by Faust, Pia, and Hayden, three escapees from the hospital who disappeared after the presumed rape and beating of Cassandra Kaltzas, daughter of the Greek munitions tycoon Alexandra Kaltzas. Each suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, experiencing complex delusions and sometimes fantastical identities. Pace tries to piece together what happened when apparently one of their alternate personalities tried to kill Cassandra.

Pace himself is an alternate of William Pacella, a man whose wife died in a restaurant fire set by a local mobster for insurance money. William Pacella “dies” so that Nightjack can be born–a new personality who may or may not be Jack the Ripper.

For unknown reasons, Pace is able to see others’ delusions–when alternates take over members of the group, Pace alone is able to interact with each persona. Included among them is Princess Eirrin, a ten thousand year old sorceress and heir to the Atlantean throne; Smoker, a half-breed gunman from 1880s Arizona; Thaddeus, friend and companion to St. Paul; and the ancient Greek architect Daedalus, who soared among the clouds with his home-made wax wings and watched his son perish in the sea.

Now the four find themselves under attack from assassins sent by Kaltzas to punish the person who attacked his daughter. Conflicting stories abound about Cassandra–whether she was raped, if she was perhaps murdered, or if she and Pace somehow crossed paths even before the hospital. In fact, she may not even exist.

As the attacks persist, the group is forced to face their own personal traumas and terrors, and go in search of Kaltzas in Greece. There, on an island where fantasy, myth, and truth are all entangled, Pace and his many alternates must sift through madness and deceit to unlock the mystery. And everyone may wind up dead unless Pace willingly unleashes the most brutal killer of all: Nightjack.

PRAISE FOR TOM PICCIRILLI & NIGHTJACK

A never-before-published, original to digital novel of action, suspense, and dread…

“Tom Piccirilli straddles genres with the boldness of the best writers today, blending suspense and crime fiction into tight, brutal masterpieces.”–JAMES ROLLINS, New York Times bestselling author of The Judas Strain

“You’re in for a treat. Tom Piccirilli is one of the most exciting authors around. He writes vivid action that is gripping and smart, with characters you believe and care about. I always pay attention when I see his name.”–David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of FIRST BLOOD and THE NAKED EDGE

“Tom Piccirilli is at the forefront of the new breed of crime writers, welding his sense of history to a modern sensibility, creating a strong new voice.”–Max Allan Collins, author of ROAD TO PERDITION

“Tom Piccirilli writes like a crazed banshee. I love his work.”—KEN BRUEN

SHORT RIDE TO NOWHERE

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

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.

SORROW’S CROWN – A Felicity Grove Mystery

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

Jonathan Kendrick’s grandmother lives in the upstate New York village of Felicity Grove. And whenever something of a criminal nature occurs, Grandma Anna is right in the thick of it. This time, the senior sleuth needs Jonathan’s help to clear an innocent man’s name. Zebediah Crummler, the cemetery caretaker, has been arrested for killing a member of the powerful Harnes family… Because of his childlike nature, Crummler is placed in an asylum, where his inconsistent tales and ramblings prove difficult for Jonathan and Anna to decipher. But they must be careful, for the Harnes clan has its own idea of rendering justice.

THE DEAD PAST – A Felicity Grove Mystery

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

Welcome to Felicity Grove…

This upstate New York village is as small as it is peaceful. But somehow Jonathan Kendrick’s eccentric grandma Anna always manages to find trouble. Crime, scandal, you name it … this wheel-chair-bound senior citizen is involved. So when the phone rings at 4 AM in Jonathan’s New York City apartment, he knows to expect some kind of dilemma. But Anna’s outdone herself this time. She’s stumbled across a dead body in her trash can.

Praise for Tom Piccirilli’s The Dead Past:

“Kendrick is one part Matt Scudder, one part aging Huck Finn, and one part Archie Goodwin … The person who summons him home is not a grizzled, but exasperated chief of police, not a swooning dame in danger—but his own grandmother, who is every bit as snoopy as Miss Marple, and every bit as tart as Joan Rivers… [a] blend of hard-boiled and cozy elements gives the book its wit, warmth and appeal … one of the best written and most enjoyable mysteries I’ve read in a long time.”—Ed Gorman, editor of Mystery Scene

“Tightly written and plotted, Piccirilli’s latest effort gracefully and whimsically navigates through pain, violence, turmoil, and the sundry details of life. At times wisecracking, intense and extreme when necessary, but always driven to find the heart of the matter…”

—Pirate Writings magazine “Piccirilli has got it! Dead Past should give him a vibrant future! Humor, a clear sense of continuity and an unexpected conclusion … Put on a warm coat, boots and a mystery mind and join the characters in this well-written, page-turning, thoroughly satisfying murder mystery.” —Eclectic Book Reviews

“Tom Piccirilli is a genius at characterization.. . His sardonic wit makes The Dead Past a great read… simultaneously mesmerizing, frightening, and poignant … a brilliant whodunit.”
—The Midwest Book Review

“Tom Piccirilli has taken us places that few mystery writers are willing to visit, and as long as he finds another dark crevice to explore … he will have a growing legion of brave readers willing to follow him there.” —Mystery News

THE FEVER KILL

Buy at Crossroad Press Buy at Amazon.com Buy at Barnes & Noble

Buy Unabridged Audiobook from Audible.com

Crease is going back to his quaint, quiet hometown of Hangtree.

It’s where his father the sheriff met ruin in the face of a scandal involving the death of a kidnapped little girl and her missing ransom. It’s where crease was beaten, jailed, and kicked clear of the town line ten years earlier.

Now Crease is back. He’s been undercover for so long that most days he feels more like a mobster than a cop. He doesn’t mind much: the corrupt life is easier to stomach than a wife wh ocan’t understand him, a son who hates him, and a half-dozen adopted kids he can’t even name anymore. He’s also just gotten his drug-dealing, knife-wielding psycho boss Tucco’s mistress pregnant.

A fine time to decide to settle odl scorers and resolve a decade-old mystery.

With Tucco hot on his tail, Crease has to find his answers fast. Who kidnapped little mary? Who really killed her? Was his own father guilty? And what happened to the paltry fifteen grand ransom that seems to spell salvation to half the population of Hangtree? The town still has a taste for his blood and secrets it wants to keep. Crease has a single hope; a raw and raging fever driving him toward the truth that might just burn him up along the way.

THE LAST DEEP BREATH

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

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.

“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.

THE NIGHT CLASS

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

The college winter break is over, and Cal Prentiss faces yet another semester of boring classes. But Cal’s boredom is shattered when he discovers evidence of an unspeakable murder that occurred in his dorm room over the break. Obsessed with finding the truth about this gruesome crime, Cal travels further and further down the twisting halls of a university suddenly gone mad. As he gets closer to the heart of the mystery, Cal is surrounded by the supernatural and the grotesque – like the blood that appears on his hands whenever someone close to him dies.

THE NOBODY

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

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.

THRUST

Buy at Crossroad Press     Buy at Amazon.com    Buy at Barnes & Noble

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.