James Sallis

Under the wise gaze of 'The Butterfly Witch' by Melissa Mary Duncan, this issue promises at least two sides to every story. Siblings work through past hurts and begin new journeys in 'Old Gifts' by feature author James Sallis and 'Can-on-a-String' by Alex Kitt. Meanwhile, zombies do double duty in 'Ambience' by Jason P Burnham and 'Caught Dead' by Shawn L Bird. We navigate new lands with Pete Barnstrom in 'Oeufs Dangereux' and Cheryl Skory Suma in...

Sarah Jane Pullman is a good cop with a complicated past. From her small-town chicken-farming roots through her runaway adolescence, court-ordered Army stint, ill-advised marriage and years slinging scrambled eggs over greasy spoon griddles, Sarah Jane unfolds her life story, a parable about memory, atonement, and finding shape in chaos. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she is named the de facto sheriff of a rural town, investigating the mysterious...

In New Orleans, Lew Griffin, a black freelance investigator, goes after a black sniper terrorizing the city. He successfully accomplishes his mission with the aid of a great deal of booze, some good books and the love of a whore. By the author of The Long-Legged Fly.

"Lew Griffin is a survivor, a black man in New Orleans, a detective, a teacher, a writer. Having spent years finding others, he has lost his son-and himself in the process. Now a derelict has appeared in a New Orleans hospital claiming to be Lewis Griffin and toting a copy of one of Lew's novels. Learning the truth is a quest that will take Griffin into his own past while he tries to deal in the present with a search for three missing young men"--...

Lew Griffin, now fifty years old, has abandoned his former career as a New Orleans private investigator for the safety of teaching. But his old life draws him back.
 
One of the very few lights from Lew Griffin’s dark and violent past has flickered out. His one-time lover, LaVerne Adams, is dead—and her daughter, Alouette, has vanished into a seamy, dead-end world of users and abusers, leaving behind a critically fragile...

In his celebrated career, James Sallis has created some of the most finely drawn protagonists in crime fiction, all of them thoughtful observers of the human condition: Lew Griffin, the black New Orleans private investigator; retired detective John Turner; the unnamed wheelman in Drive. Dr. Lamar Hale will now join the ranks of Sallis's finest characters. In the woods outside the town of Willnot, the remains of several people have suddenly been discovered,...

James Sallis' stories about ex-cop, ex-con, and ex-psychotherapist Turner have garnered starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. Back working as a deputy in a small Tennessee town, Turner's hands are full when the sheriff and the only other deputy are shot and the shooter escapes the county jail. Tracking the criminal to Memphis, Turner uncovers disturbing connections to organized crime.

A hired assassin searching for a rival killer, a burned-out detective with a terminally ill wife, and an abandoned youth surviving by his wits follow inextricably linked paths toward community acceptance in the unforgiving sunlight and sprawl of Phoenix.

Best known for The Harlem Cycle, the series of crime stories featuring Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, Chester Himes was a novelist and memoirist whose work was neglected and underappreciated in his native America during the 1950s and '60s, even as he was awarded France's most prestigious crime fiction prize. In this major biography, literary critic and fellow writer James Sallis examines the life of this "fascinating figure," combining...

The journey of the Mexico City-bound Pullman seems ill-fated from the outset -- what with the engine troubles and the threat of an impending railway strike -- but no one aboard expects the terror that will descend upon the luxury train between Laredo and its destination. First a man dies as the vehicle passes through a dark tunnel and then, just as United States Customs Agent Hugh Rennert begins to investigate, the train comes to a screeching halt...