Down Out Books: 337 books

Bill is a hustler’s hustler with a taste for the high life. He pulls off big scores for one of New York City’s more vicious gangs…until he suddenly grows a conscience. However, living the clean life takes a whole lot of money, and so Bill decides to steal a fortune from his employer before skipping...

Nobody likes a shakedown. Especially not Denis Carroll, proprietor of The Brass Lantern, a dive bar in a bleak southern Illinois town. Five years ago Denis gunned down a dirtbag who was attempting to hold up his bar. At least that’s what the cops think. After the shooting, Denis’ hotheaded...

The stories in this collection represent a range in topics and styles and feature a wide assortment of individuals who, although diverse, all have in common a singular element—trouble in their lives. That’s what fiction is about—trouble—and short stories have a particular mandate to be about...

After 18 months under the thumb of a local cartel, Selena is ready for a change. Her self-destructive lifestyle and criminal enterprise have put strains on both her relationships and her health. But getting out won’t be easy. Selena’s operation is too lucrative to let go, and this is a business...

It’s the fall of 1882. Kentucky, the land of dark and bloody ground as the Indians called it, has far from recovered from the Civil War. The small town of Mercy, a rest stop for the emotionally and physically disfigured drifters left over from the war, will soon pay the price of the violence inherent...

May, lonely caretaker and small-time weed dealer, has spent years trying to hunker down and hide from her damaged past. As a destructive nor’easter takes aim at her sleepy island home of Folly, May tries to hunker down once more after the island is evacuated But death is in the air – not...

For a limited time only! Purchase SWANN’S WAY OUT for just $2.99 and get a link to download the first book in this series, SWANN’S LAST SONG, for FREE! A friendly poker game leads Henry Swann out to Hollywood where he tries to find the man, Rusty Jacobs, responsible for embezzling $1,000,000...

Crimespree Magazine Issue 67 features a special conversation between Lawrence Block with the late Bill Crider. Interviews include Michael Barson chatting with Max Allan Collins, who also talks about completing the work of Mickey Spillane, Kate Malmon talking with Steph Post, Richard Neer interviewed...

Outlaws. It's what makes the best of country music and crime fiction. Sometimes it's hardened criminals: murders, thieves, and convicts, sometimes it's just a poor fool driven to the edge by hard times, hard drinking, or a hard lover. In this collection you will find stories from the...

A troubled, ageing hit man leaves London and returns to his hometown in the north east of England hoping for peace. But the ghosts of his past return to haunt him. Last Year’s Man is a violent and blackly comic slice of Brit Grit noir. Praise for LAST YEAR’S MAN: “Brazill...

“Each of the 14 varied and fitfully amusing stories in this solid anthology takes as its starting point the destruction of a dam and the subsequent flooding of Everton, PA. Aymar and Chen deserve kudos for putting together a distinctive anthology.” —Publishers Weekly It happened the night...

Thirteen-year-old James Richard McNulty has problems. His mother has just divorced his father. His grades are plummeting. Bullies are menacing him on the school bus. The coach is threatening to kick him off the basketball team. And his smart and lovely "girlfriend" thinks he's gone insane. Then...

When Ania Kozak hits Vegas, she’s only looking for a place to relax and lay low with her stolen cash and diamonds. But Sin City has other plans for “Annie.” Cord Needham is a poker circuit champion with an eye for the ladies and a dark secret in his past. Casey Brunnell is a former baseball...

Welcome to California. Weed is legal. Grow it. Sell it. Smoke it. Eat it. But the money you make off it—there's the rub. Bank it, and the Feds will ask questions. Keep it around, and you’ll get robbed. LaDon and Jessie—two hustlers who make selling primo weed a regular gig—hire a private security...