Seven tales of tough guy terror.
Pool Sharks by Gerard Brennan: A friendly game of pool becomes a bare knuckled and torture laden barroom brawl for survival.
The Stray by Garry Kilworth: Tom was a quiet and gentle soul, and the hookers in the whorehouse liked having him around. But one dangerous costumer didn't. He wanted Tom to vanish, permanent like.
Hardboiled Stiff by Michael Hemmingson: Private Investigator Arthur "Artie" Gordon awakens in his own grave, with two bullet holes in his chest letting him know how he got there. His desire to learn why he was murdered is only slightly more powerful than his new found hunger for human brains.
All the Pretty Girls by Ronald Damien Malfi: Pablo Santiago has a very special place where he communes with God, inside of a rusted wreck of an abandoned car in the desert. Pablo believes the car is God, and God wants a special woman. Pablo can't seem to find her, though. So he keeps looking, and keeps making offerings. He's starting to lose count of just how many he has made, but Pablo knows it has to be at least six, so far...
Moving Pictures by Gord Rollo: Ronnie relishes his new job as a "protection" money collector for the local crime boss. But Ronnie soon discovers that accepting the offer of a freebie from the owner of a newly opened tattoo parlor wasn't the smartest thing to do.
The Essences by Davin Ireland: When a man dies mysteriously at an insurance fraud investigation site, field operative Paul Gemson takes advantage of a clue he found on the deceased person and goes hunting for reparations. What he finds is the very essence of humanity.
Bloodbath at Lansdale Towers by Michael Boatman: Drug dealer Lennox Ravanaugh enjoys torturing the rich white kids he gets hooked on his poisonous wares. Right at this moment, he's enjoying forcing a strung out brother and sister into doing certain things to one another. Too bad Ravanaugh's little party is crashed by a strangely dressed man and his red hot assistant. What Ravanaugh and his crew don't know is just how bad their surprise visitors are, beneath their polite exteriors.
Badass Horror
"This collection of horror stories will slap you in the face, kick you in the teeth, and burn cigarette holes in your couch."
Well, the book's opening and closing tales, Pool Sharks and Bloodbath at the Lansdale Towers, certainly live up to that hyperbolic ad copy. Sharks is, by far, the better of the two, while Towers tries a little too hard to emulate the over-the-top narrative styling of Mr. Joe R. Lansdale hisownself. In between these two rough rides are a solid little sampling of noir laced nightmares in varying shades of gray. On the lighter side, there is Hardboiled Stiff, a private detective turned zombie yarn that manages to mix murder, mystery, necrophilia and brain noshing zombie mayhem into a story that truly satisfies. All the Pretty Girls is my choice for the most beautifully written story in the anthology, it casts a spell that The Stray wished it could, but can't. Not helping is how The Stray is all but derailed by an incredibly weak ending that hinges on a poorly delivered pun. Moving Pictures felt overly familiar. I am certain that I read it, or at least a story very much like it, at some point in the past. I just can't for the life of me remember where or when. It also shares some minor similarity with a William Friedkin directed episode of the HBO series Tales from the Crypt. The penultimate story in the anthology, The Essences, is a wonderful little morality tale suitable for The Twilight Zone.
If you find this anthology for a reasonable price, remember it contains only seven stories, so it runs just a page or two over one hundred and forty pages, and the idea of [for the most part] bad boys being in very bad situations appeals, then grab Badass Horror. Just don't blame me for the holes that it might burn into your couch or favorite reading chair, okay?
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