Showing results by author "Tom Piccirilli" in All Categories

Hellboy comes to a crossroads in Enigma, Georgia, a small town beset by strange occurrences. Sent to keep an eye on Sarah Nail, a young girl hiding from the curse of her family, he becomes entangled in the blood debt of evil mystical preacher Brother Jester. Stuck between human malice and the mysteries of the occult, Hellboy comes up against an intrigue of ghosts, demon trees, talking bullfrogs, and a race of lost mutant children.

From award-winning author Tom Piccirilli comes what Lee Child calls “perfect crime fiction,” a wholly original novel introducing the Rands, a vipers’ nest of crooks and cons, one generation stealing from the next. Upon the razor-thin edge between love and violence lives a pair of brothers, their bonds frayed by betrayals and guilt, their loyalty to each other their last salvation.

Chase was raised as a getaway driver by his grandfather, Jonah, a con man feared by even the hardened career criminals who make up his crew. But when Jonah crosses the line and murders one of his own, Chase goes solo, stealing cars and pulling scores across the country. And then he meets Lila, a strong-willed deputy sheriff with a beguiling smile who shows him what love can be. Chase is on the straight and narrow for the first time in his life - until tragedy hits, and he must reenter the dark world of grifters and crooks....

Welcome to Felicity Grove.... This upstate New York village is as small as it is peaceful. But somehow, Jonathan Kendrick's eccentric grandma, Anna, always manages to find trouble. Crime, scandal, you name it...this wheel-chair-bound senior citizen is involved. So, when the phone rings at four a. m. in Jonathan's New York City apartment, he knows to expect some kind of dilemma. But Anna's outdone herself this time. She's stumbled across a dead body in her trash can.

The college winter break is over, and Cal Prentiss faces yet another semester of boring classes. But Cal's boredom is shattered when he discovers evidence of an unspeakable murder that occurred in his dorm room over the break. Obsessed with finding the truth about this gruesome crime, Cal travels further and further down the twisting halls of a university suddenly gone mad.

Pentacle collects the classic tales of an unnamed Necromancer and his demonic familiar "Self" as they wander the spectral highways of America incurring the wrath of both heaven and hell.

When a nameless man awakens to find his blood-spattered brother passed out in his trailer it sets off a chain of painful, hard-hitting events that tests family loyalty and shows the savage impact of a father's dark legacy.

An ex-cop, Finn was left literally blinded by violence. The one thing he can still see is the body of his wife, Dani, and a crime scene that won’t fade from his mind’s eye. Now a teacher, Finn never would have guessed that an isolated girls’ prep school could be every bit as dangerous as city streets. Especially when he stumbles upon a local girl lying in a graveyard in the middle of a raging blizzard. Finn may live in a world of total darkness, but it’s about to get a splash of red.

On the day of his release from a mental institution, Pace is taken "hostage" by Faust, Pia, and Hayden, three escapees from the hospital who disappeared after the presumed rape and beating of Cassandra Kaltzas, daughter of the Greek munitions tycoon Alexandra Kaltzas. Each suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, experiencing complex delusions and sometimes fantastical identities. Pace tries to piece together what happened when apparently one of their alternate personalities tried to kill Cassandra.

Crease is going back to his quaint, quiet hometown of Hangtree. It's where his father, the sheriff, met ruin in the face of a scandal involving the death of a kidnapped little girl and her missing ransom. It's where Crease was beaten, jailed, and kicked clear of the town line 10 years earlier.

Cryer once had another name, but he can't remember it. The man he used to be was stabbed in the head by an assailant. After months of catatonia, Cryer awakens in a mental facility to find that his former life is almost completely forgotten. He knows his wife and daughter have been murdered - he saw them die moments before his own assault - but his shattered mind is incapable of retaining their names. Or even his own.

Jonathan Kendrick's grandmother lives in the upstate New York village of Felicity Grove. And whenever something of a criminal nature occurs, Grandma Anna is right in the thick of it. This time, the senior sleuth needs Jonathan's help to clear an innocent man's name. Zebediah Crummler, the cemetery caretaker, has been arrested for killing a member of the powerful Harnes family.... Because of his childlike nature, Crummler is placed in an asylum, where his inconsistent tales and ramblings prove difficult for Jonathan and Anna to decipher. But they must be careful.

From the moment he saw the girl in the snowstorm, Flynn had less than an hour to live. But he’ll remember his last fifty minutes long after he’s dead. As an investigator for Suffolk County Child Protective Services, Flynn has seen more than his share of misery, but nothing could prepare him for the nightmare inside the Shepards’ million-dollar Long Island home. In less than an hour, that nightmare will send him plunging into a frozen harbor - and awaken him to a reality even more terrifying.

After his brutally violent cop father kills his mother in a heinous fashion on Christmas day, a young boy is raised on the streets of Brooklyn to become the deadliest hitman for the Mob. But even while he carves out a life and reputation for himself dispatching enemies of the syndicate, the hitter is planning his revenge against those who helped to make him what he is. From the cruel mob family to his own murderous old man, who sends threats and taunts from the safety of his jail cell.

Chase is a performance poet with a history of mental illness who's spent time in jail and hospitals while trying to deal with traumas from his past. A cult figure in New York City, he's as well known for his mania as he is for his poetry. During a reading, Chase sees a woman he believed had died on the ward due to the cruelty of a brutal guard - is she a hallucination, a ghost, or a killer who faked her own murder?

Matthew Galen came back home to Summerfell for a reason. Not to visit his family. Not to relive childhood memories. No, he came back because his best friend was in a hospital for the criminally insane - for crimes too unspeakable to believe. But Matthew knows the terrifying truth. The ultimate evil doesn't reside in his friend's twisted soul. It comes from a far darker place, a place only Matthew knows. And only Matthew can stop the evil - if he dares.

Something is calling Jacob Maelstrom back to the isolated home of his childhood - to the scene of a living nightmare that almost cost him his life. Ten years ago his sister slaughtered their brother and parents, locked Jacob in a closet...then committed a hideous suicide. Now, as the anniversary of that dark night approaches, Jacob is drawn back to a house where the line between the living and the dead is constantly shifting.

The Last Deep Breath follows Grey, a drifter on the search for his foster sister, who showed up for the first time in 10 years with a knife in her side, then vanished without a trace. Grey winds up in Los Angeles, dealing with manipulative actresses and scummy agents, hoping to find some clue as to what happened to her after she dropped out of a porn career he didn't know about.

After the break-up of his latest relationship, Nathaniel Follows meets beautiful, wealthy, and melancholy Susan Hartford; their rapport is immediate. She invites him to her home for a grandiose birthday celebration, and Nathaniel finds that Susan's life is not as enviable as it seems - in the midst of the gathering he realizes there is a wall of fear around her, and that her self-deprecation has a decidedly violent streak.

Futile Efforts features nearly 500 pages of Tom Piccirilli's unique blend of intense and provocative writing. Includes the stories "Alchemy" - "Voice C" - "An Average Insanity, a Common Agony" - "Around it Still the Sumac Grows" - "With Eyes Averted" - "Shadder" - "Making Faces" - "Thief of Golgotha" - "These Strange Lays" - "Two in the Eyes" - "Tortures of that Inward" - "Traveling" - "Jesus Wrestles the Mob to Feed the Homeless" - "Jonah Arose" - and continues with 45 of the author's most acclaimed poems.