Tom Piccirilli – författare

Professional thief Terrier Rand hasn’t gotten caught yet. It’s only his conscience chasing at his heels.  In the follow-up to Tom Piccirilli’s acclaimed novel The Last Kind Words, prodigal thief Terrier Rand has come home to the family that has lawbreaking in its blood. With generations of Rands keeping secrets from the outside world—not to mention from one  another—Terry is sure of one thing: He owes it to the woman he loved and lost to make sure her husband stays alive.   Kimmy’s husband, Terry’s old friend Chub, hasn’t been seen since he supplied a getaway car for a heist that went wrong. When Terry investigates the ominous disappearance, he discovers that Chub was involved with a strange, violent gang of heavy hitters—guys who don’t take kindly to Terry asking questions. But before Terry can find his friend, a curvaceous divorcée takes him for a walk on the wild side, estranged relatives pull him into their horror movie empire, his sister Dale sets her sights on Hollywood after scoring a hit viral video, and his own uncle recruits Terry to rip off his partner.   In a world of larceny, grift, and fraud, no amount of loyalty—to friends, wives, or lovers—can compete with the Rand family drama. Terry just wants to bring Chub home to his wife and child. Instead, he’s dodging mobsters, moguls, and murderers . . . and the truth about one crime of his own.   The Last Whisper in the Dark takes readers on a wild, rollicking ride with an eclectic crowd of fascinating characters—from a well-mannered killer who drives needles into his victims’ brains to a young gangster struggling to live up to his father’s expectations. Bonds of honor, bonds of blood, and betrayals of both make this the most powerful read yet from the heralded Tom Piccirilli.   Praise for Tom Piccirilli’s The Last Kind Words   “Perfect crime fiction . . . a convincing world, a cast of compelling characters, and above all a great story.”—Lee Child   “A crime noir mystery as hard-boiled as any in recent memory, recalling the work of Chandler, Pelecanos and Connelly . . . Readers will be pinned to their seats until the last page is turned.”—Bookreporter   “At once a dark and brooding page-turner and a heartfelt tale about the ties that bind.”—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Heartbroken   “[A] caustic thriller . . . The characters have strong voices and bristle with funny quirks.”—The New York Times Book Review   “[Piccirilli] deserves a breakout novel and this just might be it.”—Booklist (starred review)   “For the first time since The Godfather, a family of criminals has stolen my heart. This is a brilliant mix of love and violence, charm and corruption. I loved it.”—Nancy Pickard, bestselling author of The Scent of Rain and LightningFrom the Hardcover edition.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words.This lyrical tale of evil, loss, and redemption is a stunning addition to the Southern gothic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and Harry Crews. A Choir of Ill Children is the startling story of Kingdom Come, a decaying, swamp backwater that draws the lost, ill-fated, and damned. Since his mother’s disappearance and his father’s suicide, Thomas has cared for his three brothers—conjoined triplets with separate bodies but one shared brain—and the town’s only industry, the Mill. Because of his family’s prominence, Thomas is feared and respected by the superstitious swamp folk. Granny witches cast hexes while Thomas’s childhood sweetheart drifts through his life like a vengeful ghost and his best friend, a reverend suffering from the power of tongues, is overcome with this curse as he tries to warn of impending menace. All Thomas learns is that “the carnival is coming.” Torn by responsibility and rage, Thomas must face his tormented past as well as the mysterious forces surging toward the town he loves and despises.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words.Two years ago Shad Jenkins went to prison for assaulting his sister’s attacker. Now he has returned to the southern mountain town of Moon Run Hollow, only to find that Megan is dead. No one knows how she died–or why she was found on Gospel Trail Road, a dirt path leading up to the gorge high above the Chatalaha River, where victims of yellow fever were once brought to die. Navigating a world filled with abnormal children and clandestine snake handlers, one that is slowly being poisoned by illegal moonshine, Shad must pierce the townsfolk’s superstitions and terrible secrets to find out the truth about his sister’s death. But the Blood Dreams he’s suffered from since childhood have taken on an eerie urgency, revealing to Shad the nightmarish form of an unseen adversary. Plagued by the wraiths that haunt the hollow, Shad finds himself increasingly unsure of his own sanity as he begins to piece together what may have happened to his sister–and who exactly his enemy is....

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words.The night Johnny Danetello drove a dying girl through the streets of Brooklyn in his cab, he was trying to save her life. Instead he ran down a cop and lost her and his freedom. Every day in prison, Johnny knew that Angie Monticelli’s family blamed him for her death, and that going home would be suicide. But Johnny has unfinished business with his former friend turned mob boss, Vinny Monticelli. Now Johnny has returned to converse with the doomed and the dead–and wait for Vinny to make his move. Survivors of a long-ago freak accident, the two men share access to alternate realities no one else can know–and to a past and present that will all become the same in a city only one of them can leave alive. . . .

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words.Five years ago, Eddie Whitt’s daughter Sarah became the victim of a serial killer known as Killjoy, and Whitt vowed to hunt him down—no matter what the cost. But the police have given up. And Killjoy has stopped killing…and in some bizarre act of repentance has begun kidnapping abused infants and leaving them with the parents of his original victims. The only clues to Killjoy’s identity lie in a trail of taunting letters. And even as they lead Whitt to a deadly cult—and closer to his prey—he begins to suspect that, like his wife, he’s losing his grip on reality: Sarah’ s dollhouse is filled with eerie activity, as if her murder never occurred. As dark forces rise around him, Whitt must choose—between believing that evil can repent…and stepping into a trap set by a killer who may know the only way to save Whitt’s soul.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words.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.They’ve nicknamed Flynn “The Miracle Man” because few have ever been resuscitated after being dead so long. But a determined homicide detective and a beautiful, inquisitive reporter have questions about what really happened at the Shepard house—and why the people around Flynn are suddenly being murdered. Flynn has questions of his own, especially when one of the victims dies while handing him a note: THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. Flynn has returned from the Midnight Road—and someone wants to send him back.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words.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. Now Chase is out for revenge—and he’ll have to turn to the one man he hates most in the world. Only Jonah can teach Chase how to become a stone-cold killer. But even as the two men work together, Chase knows that their unresolved past will eventually lead them to a showdown of their own.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words.Raised to be a thief and getaway driver, Chase left the bent life after he found his true love, Lila. For ten years he walked the straight and narrow—until Lila was murdered. Now Chase is looking for his grandfather Jonah, the stone-cold-killer con man who raised him anis the last living repository of his family’s darkest secrets. In returning to his criminal roots, Chase hopes to save Jonah’s infant daughter from the life that Chase himself can’t escape.But first he’ll need a score. Chase thinks he’s found it as a driver for a dysfunctional crime family that’s anything but organized. With the Langans’ patriarch dying, the once powerful syndicate may unravel before Chase can rip it off. If he survives the bloodbath to come, he’ll face an even uglier showdown. Because his grandfather Jonah is waiting for him at the coldest family reunion this side of hell.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli''s The Last Kind Words. 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 professor, 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. The memories that torment him still have the power to kill, and a group of innocent students has been put in harm’s way by a pair of vicious criminals stalking Finn for unknown reasons. Secrets are creeping from the shadows around him—the kind that even a man with perfect vision never sees until it’s too late. They’re about to become terrifyingly clear to Finn—and it all begins with the scent of blood.

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.Raised to pick a pocket before he could walk, Terry Rand cut free from his family after his older brother, Collie, went on a senseless killing spree that left eight dead. Five years later, only days before his scheduled execution, Collie contacts Terry and asks him to return home. Collie claims he wasn’t responsible for one of the murders—and insists that the real killer is still on the loose.Dogged by his own demons, Terry is swept back into the schemes and scams of his family: His father, Pinsch, a retired cat burglar, brokenhearted because of his two sons. His card-sharp uncles, Mal and Grey, who’ve incurred the anger of the local mob. His grandfather, Shep, whose mind is failing but whose fingers can still slip out a wallet  from across the room. His teenage sister, Dale, who’s flirting dangerously with the lure of the family business. And Kimmie, the woman Terry abandoned, who’s now raising a child with Terry’s former best friend.  Terry pieces together the day his brother turned rabid, delving into a blood history that reveals the Rand family tree is rotten to the roots, and the secrets his ancestors buried are now coming furious and vengeful to the surface.A meditation on how love can confine a person just as easily as it can free him, juxtaposing shocking violence and sly humor, The Last Kind Words is the brilliantly inventive family saga that only a singular talent like Tom Piccirilli could conjure.Includes a preview of Tom Piccirilli’s next book, The Last Whisper in the Dark.Praise for The Last Kind Words   “A crime noir mystery as hard-boiled as any in recent memory, recalling the work of Chandler, Pelecanos and Connelly . . . Readers literally will be pinned to their seats until the last page is turned.”—Bookreporter   “At once a dark and brooding page-turner and a heartfelt tale about the ties that bind.”—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Heartbroken   “[A] caustic thriller . . . The characters have strong voices and bristle with funny quirks.”—The New York Times Book Review   “[Piccirilli] deserves a breakout novel, and this just might be it.”—Booklist (starred review)

Crease is going back to his quaint, quiet hometown of Hangtree, 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 ten years earlier.Crease has a single hope; a raw and raging fever driving him toward the truth that might just burn him up.

Pace is released from a mental institution, only to be kidnapped by three other escapees, all suffering from multiple personality disorder. What ensues is a wild, surreal adventure leading finally to a Greek island, where everyone may wind up dead unless Pace willingly releases the darkest persona of all...Nightjack.

Clay was an honest New York City cop driven to bring down the mob and make his city a little safer, even when it seemed like nothing he did made any difference. He always played by the rules until a two-bit junkie hit man destroyed his family and left him for dead. But Clay won't let himself lie down until he gets one last thing: revenge.

"e;In this disturbing, often grotesque and ultimately mesmerizing collection, Piccirilli (The Cold Spot) reprints 17 stories and 45 poems. Although the star-studded introductions are a nice bonus, Piccirilli's stories are the selling point, and all are standouts. "e;An Average Insanity, a Common Agony"e; is an emotionally devastating tale of a man trying to do the right thing for the sake of an innocent creature. "e;Alchemy"e; tells the story of five emotionally stunted people whose discovery of a dead body lets them visit their own dark places ("e;They weren't frightened [by the sight of the corpse]. None of us were. It broke up the monotony"e;). "e;With an Ear for My Father's Weeping"e; manages to be both touching and hysterical. Piccirilli's unique mix of gore, violence and a literate style bordering on the lyrical help make this collection one that horror fans will relish."e;--Publishers Weekly, starred review. With story introductions by Jack Ketchum, Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Simon Clark, TM Wright, Gary Braunbeck, Thomas Monteleone, Tamara Thorne, Ed Gorman, Ray garton, and Christopher Golden.

A man known only as the Necromancer and his demonic familiar named "e;Self"e; wander the spectral highways of the countryside, incurring the wrath of both heaven and hell – and facing the curses of the damned. But it's a figure from his past that may drive the Necromancer into a hell even he cannot escape. Jebediah DeLancre, the leader of the Necromancer's old coven, has created a new coven, an evil band determined to use the black arts for their own hideous ends.The Necromancer is forced to return to his home, a place haunted by memories, where years earlier his original coven was destroyed, and where Danielle, the only love of his life, met an awful death. Together with Self, the Necromancer must battle not only his former master, but the members of the new coven and the jealous ghosts of his old one…all the while taunted by the possibility that Danielle may return from the dead.

PENTACLE collects the classic tales of an unnamed Necromancer and his demonic familiar "e;Self"e; as they wander the spectral highways of America incurring the wrath of both heaven and hell.Praise for PENTACLE:"e;I was delighted with the assurance of his prose and imagery. The stories abound with startling and emotive incidents."e; --Charles de Lint, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction"e;While technically horror fiction, PENTACLE has more the feel of mythic fantasy, with larger than life characters and wonderous events. This is an odd, unclassifiable and quite enjoyable short book."e; --Science Fiction Chronicle"e;This is whiplash fiction that takes dangerous curves at 150 m.p.h."e; --Deathrealm

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? Chase tries to battle his own demons, dementia, and insane desires long enough to face up to his heinous enemies before they destroy what's left of his mind.

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. As he gets closer to the heart of the mystery, Cal is surrounded by the supernatural and the grotesque – like the blood that appears on his hands whenever someone close to him dies.

Five years ago, Priest McClaren and his younger sister, Molly, were forced to watch as their parents were murdered by a desperate pair of outlaws. Though one is dead, the other, Yuman Dean, is still on the loose. Now Molly is a haunted bounty hunter and all Priest wants is to run a little store with his partner, Lamarr, an ex-slave and ex-Union soldier. But it won't be that easy. First Priest and Lamarr will have to deal with Septemus Hart, the wealthy landowner who's out to own the whole town. Then, when Molly has to give up the hunt, it will fall to Priest to finally track down Yuman Dean … and make him pay.

"Lovers of gritty noir will devour this . . . a pulse-pounding account of a writer''s descent into despair and violence." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) With his book sales—never strong to begin with—ebbing and the economy crashing, a writer is on the brink. When his wife leaves him and the bank takes his house, he goes over the edge. Living out of his car with his beloved bulldog, Churchill, he''s set upon by street punks just as he''s about to pawn the only things of value he has left. He''s lost nearly everything. But he''s gained a gun. His well-off brother lives in New York—far from Denver, but the only place he might find a reliable roof over his head and any hope of starting over. Along the road he will stop off to see ex-girlfriends, relatives, friends, and business associates. At this point, his primary goal is survival. But with each passing mile, the survival of others grows more uncertain—in this taut, psychologically gripping novel from a two-time International Thriller Award winner and Edgar Award finalist. Acclaim for Tom Piccirilli "Boldly original." —New York Times Book Review on The Last Kind Words "Noir that mates Flannery O''Connor with Stephen King." —San Francisco Chronicle on A Choir of Ill Children "Should make fans of Jim Thompson and Charlie Huston feel right at home." —Kirkus Reviews on The Fever Kill

Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominated editor Warren Lapine celebrates twenty years in genre publishing with his latest effort, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. This anthology contains fourteen nicely varied stories by some of the top names in genre publishing and several new up-and-comers. Included are Harlan Ellison, Mike Resnick, Barry B. Longyear, Kelly McCullough, Shariann Lewitt, Tom Piccirilli, Trent Zelazny, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, and many others. The stories range from edgy cyberpunk to urban fantasy, and they''ll stay with you long after you''ve closed the book. Explore what it means to be human and experience the depth of despair and heights of joy that come along it. These stories do not disappoint.-SF Scope