Books
Beneath Cruel Waters
Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn’t been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood.
Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter? And what role did his sister, institutionalized since she was a teenager, play in this act of violence? As his own traumatic memories begin to resurface, Holt begins an investigation into his mother’s and sister’s pasts—as well as his own.
“A slow-burning tale of generational suffering that inches its way toward heartbreaking reveals for a family in desperate need of hope and deliverance.” —Aaron Philip Clark, author of Under Color of Law
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Captain Clive's
Dreamworld
After becoming the suspect in the death of a young woman, Deputy Sam Hardy is reassigned to the town of Angels and Hope, which, within its borders, holds the once magnificent amusement park, Captain Clive's Dreamworld. However, the park is essentially empty of customers. None of the townsfolk ever seem to sleep. And girls seem to be going missing with no plausible explanation. The truth—about the town and himself—will lead Hardy to understand that there’s no such thing as a clean escape.
“Captain Clive’s Dreamworld winds its way through an eerie, Lynchian landscape, populated by Stepford citizenry, cursed lives, and all the bleak sensibilities of the most dire Cormac McCarthy tale.” —Ronald Malfi, author of Bone White
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The Lantern Man
Shortly after her brother, Stormy, is convicted of the brutal murder of a classmate, seventeen-year-old Lizzy Greiner is found dead in an abandoned mountain shack, the result of an apparent suicide by fire. Next to Lizzy’s charred body, investigators find several of her journals, safely stored inside a fireproof box. Detective Russ Buchanan is tasked with determining the veracity of her narrative. The further into the investigation he delves, the more Buchanan questions everything he thought he knew about Lizzy’s death and the murder for which her brother was convicted.
"Part memoir, part case file and completely absorbing, The Lantern Man is a compelling pastiche on the verge of madness.” —Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire mysteries
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The Drive-Thru
Crematorium
Stanley Maddox lives a mundane life in a nondescript town. His wife is cheating on him, his colleagues at work don't recognize him, and he has recently noticed a mysterious creature darting its way through his house. When he notices a flap of skin on his face, he begins pulling. Beneath his skin lies another person, an evil person, with the power to change his life forever.
"Jon Bassoff is the Kafka of Colorado, a writer who spins feverish nightmares out of the insane realities of modern life. Horrifying and hilarious, The Drive-Thru Crematorium is his darkest trip yet..." —Jake Hinkson, winner of the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere
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The Blade This Time
A man wakes to find himself below ground in the abandoned subway stations of New York City. He has no idea how he got there, no idea who he is. In his pocket he finds only a wad of blood-stained cash and a deck of playing cards.
Once above ground, he rents out a cheap apartment, previously occupied by an enigmatic artist named Max Leider. Without an identity of his own, the man becomes fascinated with Leider. He begins wearing his clothes. He begins painting on his canvases. He begins taking on his obsessions. But as his persona fully transforms into Max Leider, he will find some horrifying truths about the artist…and himself.
"A nightmarish descent into the underbelly of New York City and the darkest corners of the psyche. A gritty, disorienting ride.” —Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts
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The Incurables
The year is 1953. Disgraced in the psychiatric hospital where he’d practiced for nearly thirty years, Dr. Walter Freeman has taken to traversing the country and proselytizing about a very new kind of salvation: the transorbitol lobotomy.
When he enters the backwater Oklahoma town of Burnwood, however, his own sanity will be tested. Around him swirls a degenerate and delusional cast of characters—a preacher who believes his son to be the Messiah, a demented and violent young prostitute, and a trio of machete-wielding brothers—all weaved into a grotesque narrative that reveals how blind faith in anything can lead to destruction.
“Jon Bassoff’s The Incurables practically bleeds off the page with a dark poetry so intense, that you can still feel it after your eyes are closed.” —Todd Robinson, author of The Hard Bounce
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Factory Town
Russell Carver, an enigmatic and tortured man in search of a young girl gone missing, has come to Factory Town, a post-industrial wasteland of abandoned buildings, crumbling asphalt, deadly characters, hidden secrets and unspeakable depravity. Wandering deeper and deeper into the dangerous, dream-like and darkly mysterious labyrinths in town, Russell stumbles upon clues that not only lead him closer to the missing girl, but to his own troubled past as well. Because in Factory Town nothing is what it seems, no one is safe, and there’s no such thing as a clean escape.
“Factory Town: A hallucinatory descent into an urban hell that rivals Jim Thompson for stark terror. Jon Bassoff is a master of that territory where pulp becomes poetry, crime fiction mates with horror, but this novel is very much its own self—an unnervingly individual piece of work.”
—Ramsey Campbell, Bram Stoker award-winning author of Ancient Images
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Corrosion
A mysterious Iraq war veteran with a horribly scarred face… A disturbed young man in a strange mountain town… A masked preacher with a terrible secret… Amidst a firestorm of violence, betrayal and horror, their three worlds will eventually collide in an old mining shack buried deep in the mountains. Corrosion, the shattering debut novel by Jon Bassoff, is equal parts Jim Thompson, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, and an unforgettable journey into the underbelly of crime and passion. Drawn from the darkest corners of the human experience, it is sure to haunt readers for years to come.
“Corrosion is a fever dream, a lucid nightmare. It is at once poetic and brutal; hypnotic and vicious; empathetic and heartless. It is the most effective kind of horror—the kind you believe. Reading it is a deeply uncomfortable experience in the best possible way.”
—Marcus Sakey, author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes
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The Disassembled Man
The Disassembled Man tells the story of Frankie Avicious, a hard-luck fellow with a sordid past. Living in a dreary meatpacking town, stuck in a loveless marriage, and spending his days slaughtering cattle, Frankie has nothing to look forward to but his next swallow of bargain whiskey. His wife is threatening to leave him, and the local sociopath is threatening to kill him. And then there’s Scarlett Acres, a stripper with a heart of fool’s gold. With the encouragement of a mysterious traveling salesman, Frankie sets out to reverse his destiny through a series of bizarre murders. The consequences of his brutality turn out to be far worse than even he could imagine.
“Bassoff has written sheer, nasty beautiful prose with this book. The wince factor is high and the characters horridly riveting. The envelope has not just been pushed, but set on fire.”
—Jennifer Jordan, Crime Spree Magazine
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The Memory Ward
They say it's always beautiful in Bethlam, Nevada. No place you'd rather live. The people are friendly, if a little nosy, and there's no crime to speak of. Life is pretty perfect.
But postal worker Hank Davies has started to suspect something is off in this idyllic little town. And he's certain of that when he realizes the letters he's been delivering are just blank pages.
Hank isn't the only one who's noticed the oddities in Bethlam. One such person knocks on his window in the middle of the night, urging him to investigate his bedroom wall. When Hank pulls back the wallpaper, he discovers dozens of sheets of paper, full of a story that is either complete madness or unbelievable truth. As he begins looking beyond the veneer of his smiling neighbors and their white picket fences, Hank is drawn further and further into a disturbing new reality ...
Told in Bassoff's lyrical and evocative style, The Memory Ward is a disquieting page-turner that examines the nature of identity, trauma, and what it means to be human.
"The Memory Ward is a mystery box of a novel that you will delight in unraveling--a true mind-bender that expertly subverts your expectations and will leave you wondering how Bassoff pulled it off. I dare you to put this down once you start it."
-- "Rob Hart, bestselling author of Assassins Anonymous
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