Sidewalk Press: 10 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...

2014 Colorado Book Award Finalist. Ed Quillen entertained Denver Post readers with his weekly columns for 26 years. Deeper into the Heart of the Rockies compiles the best from the height of his career on topics ranging from Colorado to small town life to national politics.

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.

Ed Quillen is best known for entertaining Denver Post readers with his weekly columns for twenty-six years, but he wrote some of his sharpest commentary for High Country News. Managing Editor Jodi Peterson called him one of the region’s “wisest and most unique voices.” Dispatches from the High Country features a selection of his best essays published between 2008-2012.

"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...

A spellbinding mystery about the price we pay for keeping secrets for fans of literary whodunits like Marisha Pessl’s Night Film, Carol Goodman’s mysteries, and David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars. The Garden of Dead Dreams explores whether it’s possible to remake our lives when no one...

"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."...