Slush Fund: Out Now!

The last time I saw Albert Erasmus, he was driving a jaundice-yellow Ford Sierra that was nearly as old as me. Today he picked me up in a silver Mercedes Benz C-class. Nearly new.

“Nice ride, Erasmus. Business must be booming,” I say.

“This is Torquay, Mr Rey. The devil always finds work for idle hands.”

We crawl along the seafront, into the heart of the ‘English Riviera’. Once upon a time, Torquay used to be the most desirable holiday destination in the country. Well-heeled Victorians flocked here for the microclimate, building elaborate villas with enviable views. Now the villas have been subdivided into grotty bedsits and the upper classes have beaten a hasty retreat. These days, most British seaside towns have fallen on hard times. Torquay is a particularly distressing example.   

New book time! My brand new Joe Rey thriller, Slush Fund, is out now as a paperback and e-book! I wrote this novel in 2023, while participating in the ITW’s ‘Thriller-tique’ online critique programme, and I think it’s my best book to date.

For those of you following along with the chronology at home, Slush Fund follows on from Boneyard Dogs, Ten Pints of Blood and Sin Clinic and picks up Joe Rey’s story. As such, we get reacquainted with a few familiar faces from the earlier books. It also serves as a prequel to Sharp Knives & Loud Guns and Dirty Bullion, and we cross paths with a handful of characters who have only ever appeared in the ‘later’ books.

It was a blast to write: funnier, crazier and more violent than the other Joe Rey thrillers – which is saying something!

UK Link

US Link

GoodReads Link

See below for the official synopsis!

Private investigator Joe Rey earns a living from tawdry, poorly-paying cases that force him to trawl the sordid underbelly of the seaside town he calls home. The luckless investigator is given a window into another world when local lawyer Albert Erasmus enlists him to look into the death of Simon Diamond, a racist 1980s comedian, who was found with his throat slashed on his ex-wife’s yacht at Torquay Marina. A Bulgarian prostitute, Elena Stoyanova – known as Tinkerbell – was arrested for the murder, after being discovered at the crime scene soaked in Diamond’s blood.

Rey is keen to sink his teeth into the new case, but finds himself pressurised by local mobster Malcolm Chung into joining the security detail for a soon-to-open casino, the Lucky Dragon. Chung is acting as the go-between for a group of investors from Macau, who want to expand their illicit gambling empire to the UK. Rey quickly realises that there is more than meets the eye to the casino – and starts to make enemies with some very dangerous men.

High-class hookers, vicious Chinese mobsters, and knuckle-dragging neo-Nazis – something is very rotten on the English Riviera…

Dirty Bullion Book Trailer!

For anyone who has yet to pick up a copy of the new Dirty Bullion paperback, here’s a little trailer I put together to promote the release! If you have a spare minute, please check it out, as it gives a real flavour of the book!

Tempted? You can order a copy from the usual place!

UK Link

US Link

I was excited to get hold of a copy of the book this week, as you can see below!

Dirty Bullion Paperback: Out Now

“His nose looks like it has been broken more than once. I haul him to his feet and break it again – just for the sheer fucking hell of it. The nasal bone snaps with a wet crack, and thick, clotted blood drips from his nostrils, into his mouth. I grab him by his throat, squeezing the scratchy-looking ‘18’ tattoo on his windpipe and crunch his head into the dank brickwork.”

Back in 2018, London writer Benedict J. Jones and I collaborated on a brutal little page-turner called Dirty Bullion. We shopped the book around for a little while, without any takers and it ended up being published as an e-book the following year. I’m excited to reveal that it has now been reissued as a paperback/e-book, with brand new artwork!

Revisiting the book this month was an interesting experience for me, as I was an unpublished author back when we wrote this (well, unpublished inasmuch as I had yet to publish a full-length book)! Ben and I wrote it in a month-long blast of activity, trading chapters every other night and driving the story forward into increasingly dark territory. Looking back, there is definitely a bleak, nasty Meat Bubbles energy to my material, as that was the book I had just finished writing – and the tone I was seeking to replicate.

Anyway, you can now order this lovely looking paperback to add to your collections!

UK Link

US Link

(If you bought the e-book first time around, the new cover should refresh on your Kindle next time you use it.)

Here’s the synopsis:

A missing jeweller. A vanished girl. A stash of long-lost Nazi gold. And two very dangerous men. Things are going to get dirty.

In DIRTY BULLION Paignton private eye Joe Rey crosses paths with South London ex-con-turned-investigator Charlie ‘Bars’ Constantinou, as the two P.I.s look into very different cases.

Neither man plays well with others, but they are forced to push aside their mutual suspicions to work together on an increasingly disturbing case – an assignment which sees the duo outnumbered, outgunned and out of their depth.

With an army of neo-Nazis ensconced in South Devon, the two men head into the belly of the beast. But will they make it out alive?

DIRTY BULLION represents the first collaboration between two of the UK’s most exciting crime writers, Benedict J. Jones and Tom Leins.

Bishop Rider Lives: Out Now!

“I feel the skell’s windpipe crunch under my gloved hand and topple his swollen body into the drainage ditch that runs alongside the decrepit red-brick warehouse.”

Out today via Down & Out Books: Bishop Rider Lives!

As previously mentioned, this book is an all-new collection of short stories featuring Beau Johnson‘s iconic anti-hero, Bishop Rider. All 15 stories have been written by other authors – one of which is me! The other contributors – and this is one hell of a list – are as follows: S.A. Cosby, Rob Hart, Laurel Hightower, Nick Kolakowski, James D.F. Hannah, Jay Stringer, Meagan Lucas, Mark Rapacz, Manny Torres, Peter O’Keefe, Mary Thorson, Elford Alley, Paul J. Garth and Rob D. Smith.

My story, ‘Two Inches From A Main Artery’, flashes back in time to when Bishop Rider was still working as a detective, partnered with his old buddy Batista. The pair are on the trail of the man who shot Bishop and left him for dead.

UK Amazon Link

US Amazon Link

Bishop Rider Lives @ Do Some Damage

Earlier this week Do Some Damage ran a feature previewing the upcoming anthology Bishop Rider Lives.

The collection is inspired by Beau Johnson’s cop-turned-vigilante Bishop Rider and you can read the opening lines for all 15 stories here.

Here’s some artwork to accompany my intro to ‘Two Inches From A Main Artery’. (And yes, the story gets progressively more violent from this point…!)

The Down & Out Books pre-order link is now live too.

Enjoy!

Coming Soon: Bishop Rider Lives

“Scrutiny drives the sick puppies underground. Scrutiny does me few favors either. I’m comfortable on the flip-side, operating under a black flag. Blurring the line. I flourish where the scum thrives.”

Coming soon: Bishop Rider Lives! On 3rd June Down & Out Books will publish an all-new collection of short stories featuring Beau Johnson‘s iconic anti-hero, Bishop Rider. The twist? All 15 stories have been written by other authors – one of which is me!

My story, ‘Two Inches From A Main Artery’, flashes back in time to when Bishop Rider was still working as a detective, partnered with his old buddy Batista. The pair are on the trail of the man who shot Bishop and left him for dead.

The other contributors – and this is one hell of a list – are as follows: S.A. Cosby, Rob Hart, Laurel Hightower, Nick Kolakowski, James D.F. Hannah, Jay Stringer, Meagan Lucas, Mark Rapacz, Manny Torres, Peter O’Keefe, Mary Thorson, Elford Alley, Paul J. Garth and Rob D. Smith.

You can pre-order the book here!

Here’s some artwork to give a taster of my story:

Here’s the official blurb:

Blood-soaked and torso-based, Bishop Rider became THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT STOP. His singular mission, his only goal, a type of carnage most would turn from. The men who destroy Rider’s family, the type of monsters they are, resulting in a decades-long war with Rider vowing to not only burn them, but anyone like them. All things end, however, and Bishop Rider, he proves no exception, succumbing to the cancer that would eventually end him.

But life, it sometimes finds a way.

The fifteen stories in this anthology both brand new tales and written by some of the biggest names working in crime fiction and horror today. Each tale pulled from between the pages of A Better Kind of Hate, The Big Machine Eats, All of Them To Burn, Brand New Dark, and Old Man Rider.

Come for the rage, stay for the dismemberment. See how a dead man makes them burn.

Critical Acclaim for Bishop Rider Lives

“A tour of force. Oil up the wood chipper and put on a rubber apron, because Bishop Rider Lives. In the capable hands of some of the best crime writers working today, the stories in this lean anthology are brutal and cathartic, but remain altogether human. What else can I say? Every writer kills in this book.” -Johnny Shaw, author of Big Maria and The Southland

“Bishop Rider Lives elevates violence to an art-form: every knife is a paintbrush, every clawhammer a sculptor’s chisel. These stories will stay with you long after the last scumbag hangs from his own viscera. Yet amid all the carnage, you may feel these tales tugging at your heartstrings…” -C.W. Blackwell, author of Hard Mountain Clay

“From bad bar keeps getting blown away, to heartbroken moms filling a hole in their heart with the heart of another, to the gruesome slaughter of a wealthy monster-it’s all here and more. Bishop Rider Lives is both addictive and chock full of talent whose tales will leave readers ripping through pages and never wanting Bishop Rider’s brand of justice to stop. Five stars.” -Shannon Kirk, international bestselling author of Method 15/33

“Bloody, vengeful, revelatory. Some of today’s best crime and horror writers sharpen their power and writing tools and spill blood on the page in righteous tribute to the fiction world’s most justice-focused figure, Bishop Rider. This is an incredible collection of stories not to be missed.” -Curtis Ippolito, author of Burying the Newspaper Man

“Bishop Rider Lives brings together some of the best crime writers from the genre for this fantastic and brutal collection of stories exploring vigilante justice and bloody, heart-pounding, kinetic action sequences. A must read. I finished and wanted more!” -Lee Matthew Goldberg, Anthony and Lefty Award-nominated author of The Mentor and The Great Gimmelmans

“In Bishop Rider Lives, an all-star cast of crime writers come together to paint the town bloody red. But for all the satisfying gore and payback, the power is in the small moments, the snippets of bystanders and victims’ lives impacted and bettered by our favorite avenging angels. The mission doesn’t simply continue, it flourishes and strains to new emotional highs.” -James Queally, award-winning journalist and critically acclaimed author of the Russell Avery novels

The First Five People You Meet In Hell @ Punk Noir Magazine

“A charcoal-grey Lexus crawls past the Hellton Manor meat-market. Under a blood-red sunset, Paignton sweats. You used to be able to see used needles glinting in the freshly cut grass, but no one has cut it for years and it sprouts up in unruly, discoloured clumps. I wipe a thick smear of dogshit off my boot and watch the Lexus.”

I’m excited to have a brand new short story online at Punk Noir Magazine today as part of this month’s Hellton Towers submission call. The challenge was to write a story set in a decrepit tower block called Hellton Towers. The First Five People You Meet In Hell was the end result.

Big thanks to this month’s guest editor James Jenkins (of Urban Pigs Press) for running the story!

Enjoy!

Joe Rey: Growing Old Disgracefully

“The sea looks grey and inhospitable, as breakers hit the beach, frothing and fading on the dark sand. Somewhere across town a prowl car siren wails. At least someone is having a worse fucking day than us.”

The new cover of Slop Shop helped to shift a few units last month, so I thought I’d overhaul a couple more of my least favourite e-book covers: Slab Rats and Skeleton Crew.

Looking at them side by side, I like the way Slab Rats depicts a young, lean 20-something Joe Rey and Skeleton Crew depicts a grizzled 40-something ex-con Rey, complete with scruffy beard and prison muscle!

As regular readers will know, there are a few key (oft-referenced) Joe Rey storylines that haven’t actually made it into print yet, so I’m aiming to fill in the blanks this year. Watch this space!

In the meantime, you can check out the new e-book covers here (UK) and here (US).

(Note: if you bought them the first time round, the covers should automatically update on your Kindle.)

Sloppy Seconds!

The man wipes the condensation off the cracked mirror with the threadbare sleeve of his sanitarium-issue sweatshirt. It’s a bitterly cold day and he tries to massage some feeling into his hideous, rubbery face. A face that only a motherfucker could love. A visage that was clumsily stapled back together after it was disfigured with a meat axe in an abandoned factory three years ago.

Free for Kindle readers all weekend, my 2020 book: SLOP SHOP! It has been refreshed with a brand new cover to complement my new book, THE DAMAGE MANUAL.

(Note: if you bought it first time round the cover should update automatically on your device!)

UK Link

US Link

While you are browsing on Amazon, why not check out The Damage Manual and the Hunger anthology from Urban Pigs Press. Here’s what the books look like in real life:

The Damage Manual

Hunger

Out Now: Hunger Anthology From Urban Pigs Press

“The Hogg family like to trawl Torquay for wet-brains, street-drinkers, and illegal immigrants. Hopeless men with livid scar tissue in unpleasant places. They would search as far down as the Hope-and-Grope, past Factory Row, up to Castle Circus and the abandoned Jobcentre Plus building, and on into Torre.”

Today is the publication day for Hunger, a charity anthology released by Urban Pigs Press. The collection includes 23 short stories, one of which is my contribution: ‘In the Land of the Pig (The Butcher is King)’.

It’s a new and exclusive Joe Rey story, which finds your favourite anti-hero at rock bottom, sleeping in a decrepit caravan and performing menial tasks for the sadistic Hogg family.

The book – which has been edited by James Jenkins and Bam Barrow – is raising money for FIND (Families in Need), so if you have a few spare quid please consider buying a copy.

In case you missed it, I was interviewed about my contribution here.

And I returned the favour by interrogating James and Bam here.

Buy Hunger here: (UK) or (US)!