Cracked Sidewalk Press: 7 books

NOMINATED FOR THE SPINETINGLER AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL OF 2011 They call him The Kid. He's a killer, a dark legend of the Southwest's urban badlands, "a child who terrifies adults." They speak of him in whispers in dive bars near closing time. Some claim to have met him. Others say he...

This unclassifiable hybrid of harsh autobiography and hard reporting opens with an alienated Barry Graham arriving in Phoenix, Arizona, from his native Scotland in 1995. Plunging into chaotic relationships and empty sexual encounters, he also witnesses two executions and investigates Joe Arpaio, the...

A MYSTERY PEOPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Laura Ponto wouldn't mind watching Frank del Rio being strapped to the executioner's gurney, even if her job is to find mitigating evidence in death penalty cases. Frank's not a client, but a long time ago he did unspeakable things to children— and Laura...

Barry Graham's terse, resonant poems of urban Zen have been internationally published in anthologies and magazines, and broadcast on BBC radio. This, however, is the first book-length collection of his poetry. This volume brings together his best poems of two decades, ranging from haiku and tanka to love poems and murder ballads.

"Immensely entertaining... a helluva plot, and a wonderful twist." --Benjamin Whitmer, author of Pike and Cry Father Andy Saunders knows how to survive. He survived all alone in Los Angeles as a teenager, and he survived in foreign combat zones as a soldier. He survived homelessness...

Barry Graham's horror fiction has earned him comparisons with Bram Stoker, M.R. James and Stephen King, while his neo-noir fiction has been compared to that of James M. Cain, Richard Stark, David Goodis, Quentin Tarantino and Jim Thompson. In this collection of essays examining what Graham...

"This is the dark side of the American dream: blunt and brutal and every page is painfully portrayed by one of the greatest practitioners of the dark novel working today." —Tony Black, author of The Last Tiger and His Father's Son "This is how to write noir. Brilliant."...