After taking over the White Magic Five & Dime, Alanis McLachlan is trying to make up for her mother’s con jobs by tracking down old customers and making amends. When Martha, one of the most loyal clients, comes looking for a way out of her abusive marriage, Alanis does everything she can to help.

But helping Martha leads to unforeseen consequences . . . including murder. When Martha’s husband is found dead, the police show up at Alanis’s door. And things only get more complicated as she tries to clear her name from the top of the suspect list. With her growing mastery of the tarot and the Fool card to guide her, can Alanis find her way to the truth before the killer gets to her first?

Product Description"It's the most wonderful time of the year," the old song tells us. But that doesn't mean the people celebrating it are always so nice. Criminals get the Christmas spirit, too! In this collection of hilarious short stories, you'll see what the thieves, killers, psychos and scumbags are up to come the holidays...and it's not caroling door to door. Well, not unless they're casing the neighborhood for a break-in, as a rag-tag gang does in the title story. You'll also meet a mall elf menaced by a very, very bad Santa (in "I Killed Santa Claus"), a London police inspector hunting for the man who murdered Ebenezer Scrooge (in "Humbug"), a trucker out to save his shipment of Cabbage Patch Dolls from bumbling hijackers (in "Special Delivery") and many more characters you'll never forget. Originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, these nine tales from award-winning short story master Steve Hockensmith (Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Holmes on the Range) are sure to have you ho-ho-hoing from the first page to the last. About the AuthorSteve Hockensmith's debut novel, Holmes on the Range, was a finalist for the Edgar, Anthony, Shamus and Dilys Awards. He has written four sequels: On the Wrong Track, The Black Dove, The Crack in the Lens (a finalist for the Nero Award) and World's Greatest Sleuth!. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. He lives in Alameda, Calif.

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Sheriff Penny Miller of Flat Rock, Nevada, is the kind of woman who will do whatever it takes to protect those she is sworn to serve, even when that includes a murderous biker, her wimpy ex-husband, a unit of incompetent National Guardsmen, and the scientist responsible for releasing the undead upon an unsuspecting world. If you're one of the tens of thousands of people who read the free short story ‘Jailbreak,’ this is your opportunity to find out what happens after that terrifying first night of the zombie apocalypse. And those of you encountering The Hungry for the first time? You are in for the ride of your life. Aim for the head! Take a look at what some of the icons of zombie and horror fiction have to say about The Hungry: The Hungry is a zombie thriller loaded with sex and smarts. A real nail-biter that brings a new weapon to bear in apocalyptic fiction: Hope. Highly recommended. —Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Dust & Decay and Dead of Night If you’re craving an apocalyptic horror novel that’s not just wall-to-wall action but balls-to-the-wall intense, Steven W. Booth and Harry Shannon have cooked up a real treat for you. I would say The Hungry will leave you totally satisfied, but that’s not true: Readers will be howling for more more more MORE just like the hordes of insatiable zombies rampaging through this book. —Steve Hockensmith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls You don't know what gut-churning page-flipping horror really is until you read this one. The Hungry combines the storytelling power of the big commercial thriller with many new twists on standard zombie fiction. A real winner. —Ed Gorman, author of The Dark Fantastic and Cage of Night From the opening line, I loved it. I loved how complete it felt. It had so many great elements working for it - the small town setting; the two powerful main characters, as different as they could be, nearly every word between them charged with sexual tension; the satisfying stalemate as neither one gets exactly what they want, but rather what they need. A great story, and for a zombie fan like me, it pressed all the right buttons. —From the Introduction by Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and Flesh EatersAbout the AuthorSteven W. Booth has this crazy idea that he can make a living as a publisher and writer, and so far life has not disabused him of this. His first short story, Jailbreak (co-written with Harry Shannon), has been published in three different anthologies, and has been downloaded about 20,000 times (for free, but what can you do?).Steven decided in early 2010 to finally use his MBA (much to his mother's delight) and start an author services company that helps writers self-publish. After building other people's books for 18 months, he decided to become a publisher and build books for himself. Steven's first novel as both publisher and an author, The Hungry (also co-written with Harry Shannon), was released in October, 2011, and has helped pay the rent. He has since published two books by writing great Ed Gorman, and has books in the pipeline from Gene O'Neill, Brian Knight, Carol Weekes, and Karl Alexander.Harry Shannon has been an actor, a singer, an Emmy-nominated songwriter, a recording artist in Europe, a music publisher, a VP of Carolco Pictures, and worked as a freelance Music Supervisor on films such as "Basic Instinct" and "Universal Soldier." He is now a counselor in private practice. His books include Dead and Gone (a Lionsgate movie), Daemon, the Mick Callahan novels Memorial Day, Eye of the Burning Man, One of the Wicked, and Running Cold, as well as the thriller The Pressure of Darkness. Shannon has won the Black Quill for Short Fiction, the Tombstone for Best Horror Novel and has twice been nominated for the Stoker. He can be reached via his web site at harryshannon.com or via Facebook.

In 1893, Otto “Big Red” Amlingmeyer and his brother Gustav, “Old Red” find themselves in a situation that they never expected. They have a bit of money and time to do something other than scramble. It’s enough to confound even that most unconfoundable of men, their mutual inspiration, Sherlock Holmes. So Old Red decides that it’s time for the for the two of them to head off to the Texas hill country, to San Marcos, and deal with the greatest tragedy of Old Red’s life. Five years ago, when Old Red was a cowpoke in San Marcos, he had a sweetheart—a fallen woman at the local house of ill repute. They had made plans but before they made their big move, his fiancée was murdered and the case swept under the rug by the local authorities. Now, Old Red is determined to find out what really happened and to finally find a measure of justice for his beloved. But Big Red and Old Red find themselves facing a wall of silence and in some of the worst situations of their lives: ensnared in a riot at the local cathouse, on the wrong end of a lynching party and perhaps worst of all—having to do the one thing you never want to do in the state of Texas: steal horses.

A reformed con woman discovers she has a talent for tarot card reading (and amateur crime-solving) when she investigates the death of her mother -- an unreformed con woman who scammed the gullible by posing as a psychic.

When thirtysomething Chicago telemarketer ALANIS McLACHLAN is told that her estranged mother, BARBRA, is dead, her knee-jerk response is “Who killed her?” The answer: “We don’t know.”

It’s no joke. Her mother has been murdered. And much to Alanis’s surprise, she left her daughter an inheritance. Alanis is now the not-so-proud and entirely confused owner of the White Magic Five & Dime, an occult shop in tiny Berdache, Arizona. Alanis reluctantly agrees to come to Berdache to straighten out her mother’s affairs. She knows there will much to straighten out: Barbra was a con artist, and the shop, Alanis assumes, was merely a front for her latest scams.

When she gets to Berdache, Alanis picks up the keys to the store from Barbra’s slightly seedy lawyer, who also mentions that Barbra’s will was only a few weeks old. She gets some grudging help from CLARICE, the black teenager Barbra had apparently taken in some years before. Alanis isn’t surprised to learn her mother had a young partner. A flashback chapter reveals that, once upon a time -- back when her name was “Sophie Harper” -- Alanis was involved in her mom’s con jobs, too.

Of course, she’s not the only one trying to solve the murder. There’s also hunky cop JOSH LOGAN. When he drops by to question Alanis, the two hit it off. A cagy courtship begins, with each trying to wheedle information out of the other between quips.

 Though she tried to give up crime after running away from her mother years before, Alanis remembers the principles of the con game. In fact, that’s what’s kept her alive all these years: She’s never fit into the straight world and keeps ending up in shady jobs that call on her talent for manipulation and deception. It’s exactly those skills she’s going to use now. So she sets out to find her mother’s killer by, in effect, replacing her. She’s going to worm her way into her mother’s clients’ confidence by doing tarot readings.

A funny thing happens, though. The more she fakes her way through bogus readings, the more she finds that what she sees in the cards actually makes sense to her. In the end, Alanis decides to stay in Berdache with Clarice and keep the White Magic Five & Dime open. Perhaps Barbra willed the shop to her as a trap, perhaps it was her way of making amends for being such a lousy mom. Alanis accepts that she’ll never know which. Barbra was full of surprises to the very end: It turns out that Infinite Roads to Knowing, the tarot guide Alanis has been reading (and which we’ve been quoting at the beginning of each chapter), was written by Barbra herself.

Life remains full of mysteries, but Alanis finally feels she has a grip on what’s important. She likes it in Berdache and she likes her sister and she likes reading tarot cards and she likes helping people. And best of all: For the first time in her life, she likes herself.

Because 1893 is a tough year in Montana, any job is a good job. When Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer sign on as ranch hands at the secretive Bar VR cattle spread, they're not expecting much more than hard work, bad pay, and a comfortable campfire around which they can enjoy their favorite pastime: scouring Harper's Weekly for stories about the famous Sherlock Holmes. When the boys come across a dead body that looks a whole lot like the leftovers of an unfortunate encounter with a cattle stampede, Old Red sees the perfect opportunity to employ his Holmes-inspired deducifyin' skills. Putting his ranch work squarely on the back burner, he sets out to solve the case. Big Red, like it or not (and mostly he does not), is along for the wild ride in this clever, compelling, and completely one-of-a-kind mystery.

It might be 1893 and the modern world may in full-swing, but cowboy Gustav "Old Red" Amlingmeyer is an old-fashioned kind of guy: he prefers a long trail ride even when a train could get him where he's going in one-tenth the time. His brother Otto ("Big Red"), on the other hand, wouldn't mind climbing down from his horse and onto a train once in a while if it'll give his saddle-sore rear end a rest. So when it's Old Red who insists they sign on to protect the luxurious Pacific Express, despite a generations-old Amlingmeyer family distrust of the farm-stealin', cattle-killin', money-grubbin' railroads, Big Red is flummoxed. But Old Red, tired of the cowpoke life, wants to take a stab at professional 'detectifying' just like his hero, Sherlock Holmes and guard jobs for the railroad are the only ones on offer. So it is that Big Red and Old Red find themselves trapped on a thousand tons of steam-driven steel, summiting the Sierras en route to San Francisco...

"It's the most wonderful time of the year," the old song tells us. But that doesn't mean the people celebrating it are always so nice. Criminals get the Christmas spirit, too! In this collection of hilarious short stories, you'll see what the thieves, killers, psychos and scumbags are up to come the holidays…and it's not caroling door to door. Well, not unless they're casing the neighborhood for a break-in, as a rag-tag gang does in the title story. You'll also meet a mall elf menaced by a very, very bad Santa (in "I Killed Santa Claus"), a London police inspector hunting for the man who murdered Ebenezer Scrooge (in "Humbug"), a trucker out to save his shipment of Cabbage Patch Dolls from bumbling hijackers (in "Special Delivery") and many more characters you'll never forget. Originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, these nine tales from award-winning short story master Steve Hockensmith (Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Holmes on the Range) are sure to have you ho-ho-hoing from the first page to the last.

In 1893, the Amlingmeyer boys venture forth from the west in response to a summons from Otto’s (“Big Red”) publisher— they are to come to Chicago immediately, to the World’s Columbian Exposition, and compete with some of the most famous detectives in the world. Set to coincide with the closing days of the first World’s Fair and the publication of the story revealing the death of Sherlock Holmes, Gustav (“Old Red”) will be competing for the title of World’s Greatest Sleuth! Hating train travel and cities, the real draw is the chance to meet up again with the intriguing and elusive Diana Corvus. But the competition has barely begun before there is a murder in “the White City”—the organizer of the contest is discovered face down in the Mammoth Cheese from Canada—and from there, the game is really afoot.