“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!
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!)
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 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.
“I’m sitting in a swivel chair that is still greasy from its previous occupant, staring out of a small window that overlooks the back yard of the North Atlantic Video Lounge. Two Cantonese men are unloading soggy-looking cardboard boxes in preparation for one of Barry Balthazar’s notorious ‘Sunday Suppers’. Worryingly, it is only Thursday.”
I’m excited to reveal that my new book, The Damage Manual, is out today!
It’s a brutal selection of Joe Rey case files that have never previously been collected in print. Regular readers may recognise a few of the pieces, but there are also some rarities in the mix.
I’m happy to say that it is available in both e-book and paperback formats.
Here’s the synopsis:
Fresh out of prison and desperate to redeem himself, disgraced private investigator Joe Rey retreats to his shabby office and awaits his fate. Deranged clients with sordid agendas are his stock-in-trade, and there is very little that Rey won’t do for money. He is immediately plunged back into Paignton’s sordid underbelly, where he goes toe-to-toe with molesters, miscreants, maniacs and malcontents. Each case is more unhinged than the last, and his new-found enemies start to take on a hellish quality. Who knows: if he can save enough people, maybe Rey can even save himself? THE DAMAGE MANUAL is a brand new set of Paignton Noir case files from Tom Leins, the author of the cult collections MEAT BUBBLES & OTHER STORIES, TEN PINTS OF BLOOD and SHARP KNIVES & LOUD GUNS.
“It’s a mild day – far too hot for a cheap suit – and I’m sweating like a sex offender in a police line-up.”
I’m excited to reveal that my brand new e-book Slab Rats is out today!
Set in 2004, this story is a prequel to the other books in the Paignton Noir series.
I’m looking forward to seeing what readers make of it.
Here’s the synopsis:
A missing slab of coke. An ex-con surf pro in over his head. A series of unhinged Cornish drug dealers. Sounds like a job for Joe Rey…
When his ex-girlfriend Ani goes missing with a slab of cocaine belonging to a very dangerous man, Joe Rey is coerced into accompanying ex-con surfer Rico to look for her. After kicking up dust in their own back yard, the two men head to deepest, darkest Cornwall where their search sees them go toe-to-toe with a series of increasingly deranged local malcontents. With the clock ticking, will they manage to retrieve Ani and the cocaine in time?
SLAB RATS is the vicious new surf-noir thriller from the author of SKULL MEAT, SNUFF RACKET and SPINE FARM.
If you encounter excessive blood flow, apply a compression bandage and seek urgent medical assistance.
Dennis Cafferty isn’t decrepit, but he carries with him the stench of death. His most recent facelift went badly wrong and he now has a permanently haunted expression. His left eye twitches – as far as the taut skin allows. Too much booze and too little sleep. I know that feeling.
“You have plenty of men on your payroll, Cafferty. Why me?”
He shrugs.
“Those boys would walk through the flames for me, but I need subtlety.”
“Like last time?”
He scratches at the livid patch of razor-rash on his throat.
“Yeah, like last time.”
Maybe his faculties are deserting him: last time I did a job for him I was about as subtle as a house-brick in the teeth.
“Just find the bastard who set fire to my daughter, Rey.”
I nod.
2. Wash your hands, and remove any debris from the wound with water – or risk gangrene, necrosis or amputation.
Gary Maguire is a bad man, deep in the grind. He used to work for Cafferty, until he started cutting his boss’s smack with fentanyl – and putting people in the morgue.
When he found out, Cafferty threw him out of a second-floor window.
Maguire waited a year. Picked up Cafferty’s 17-year-old daughter, Denise, at a club. Promised her the world, then took her to a dirty-arse trap-house. When Maguire was done with Denise, he splashed Hennessy on her back and tried to set fire to her.
After Maguire’s boys stomped out the burning, Denise smashed the Hennessy bottle, and jabbed it into his gut. Crawled out of the trap-house naked – left the broken bottle embedded in Maguire’s midriff.
By the time Cafferty arrived, Maguire was long gone – leaving nothing behind except porno on the flatscreen, a pool of blood on the ratty mattress and a cadaverous pair of junkie squatters.
Itchy and Scratchy didn’t know shit, but Cafferty brutalised them anyway. Dumped their smashed bones in a skip two streets away.
Sterilise the utensils you intend to use and soak the wound with a disinfectant solution. If disinfectant is unavailable, you can use high-proof alcohol.
Back-street surgeons in Paignton are usually alcoholic animal doctors or struck-off GPs. Maybe the occasional ghoulish hobbyist. Men with liver-spotted hands and rusted equipment. Unclean rooms and unclean thoughts. Marwood is no exception.
His overgrown front garden stinks of burned plastic patio chairs. There’s an old Toyota on the grass – its roof dented like it has been used as a trampoline.
Marwood is taking a sip of coffee liqueur to tame his maniac tremble when I kick the door off its hinges. He waves his scalpel at me, and I slap it out of his claw-like hand.
I drag Maguire off the viscera-splattered kitchen table by his ankles.
“Careful – his stitches won’t hold!”
Maguire groans as his ruptured flesh snags on the exposed floorboards, leaving a thick smear of ooze in the hallway.
Penetrate the sub-dermal layer of skin with your needle and sew away from yourself. The edge of the wound will be numb, and can be pierced with minimal discomfort.
We’re in an anonymous room in an abandoned office block. It’s neither up for sale, nor scheduled for demolition, so there’s no reason for anyone to disturb us.
There’s a thick fug of cigarette smoke, and a juicy body odour tang, and I suspect that Cafferty has used this place before.
Even soaked in blood and viscera, his clothing looks expensive. Black leather jacket, polo-neck jumper, smart slacks and designer plimsolls.
At his feet, Maguire’s face has already been reduced to a splintered mess of bone.
“Are you not curious to see how this plays out?” Cafferty asks me.
I glance down at the contents of his dented metal tool-box, which have been laid on a plastic sheet in order of pain management potential.
“I’ll read about it in the Herald Express – like everybody else.”
He shrugs.
“Have a nice life, Rey.”
“Life is just different ways of not dying, Cafferty.”
He grunts, and I leave without another word.
Zig-zag your way across the open wound and tie it off with a strong knot.
If you enjoyed this story you can buy my books here (UK) or here (US)!
“Sharon told me that he met her at Lymington Road coach station. Another Northern runaway heading for the English Riviera. Took her for sausage and chips at a greasy spoon in Torre and offered her a job as a glass collector in his club. When she said no, he offered her a cigarette laced with Donkey Dust and waited until she passed out.”
I have a brand new piece of flash fiction online at Shotgun Honey today: Disco Blisters.
I think it’s the ninth story I’ve had published by Shotgun Honey (starting with There’s A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends back in March 2013), but I might be wrong! After almost a decade it’s still a thrill to be featured on the site.
“The elderly woman’s face explodes in a ruptured mess of cartilage and bone as my lumpen forehead makes contact with the bridge of her nose. That’s going to leave a fucking mark.”
Today saw the release of All Due Respect 2021, a new anthology which collects the twelve monthly stories that were published by All Due Respect last year, alongside a surprise bonus story from John Rector, whose excellent 2010 noir novel The Cold Kiss comes highly recommended!
The collection – which has been edited by ADR head honcho Chris Rhatigan and Unlawful Acts blogger David Nemeth – includes my story ‘The Safe House’, alongside work by the likes of Rob Pierce, Daniel Vlasaty, Alec Cizak, Jay Butkowski, Copper Smith, K.A. Laity, Preston Lang and others.
UK readers can click here to buy, or you can visit the Down & Out Books site for the full list of purchase options.
“Summers in Devon are characterised by long nights and short fuses. Winter days are grim, stunted affairs – sawn-off like shotguns – and it feels like the darkness is already closing in.”
My annual Paignton Noir Christmas story was published by Bristol Noir last week. Check out Mistletoe & Swines! Many thanks to Bristol Noir’s John Bowie for running the story!
“It’s Christmas Eve and I’m standing in the middle of a stash house in Hookhills, bleeding from one ear and trying to work out which one of the hired hands I should shoot first: the skinny guy in the soiled Sexy Santa minidress or the fat fuck in the scuffed-looking ballistics vest.”
It’s time for the fourth part of my ’12 Crimes of Christmas’ trip down memory lane, and a visit to the Punk Noir Magazine archives. Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells was written in time for Christmas 2018 and The Naughty Listappeared in 2019.
As I’ve noted before, the Joe Rey stories can often be categorised as either rampage stories or mysteries – although the lines generally blur before each story reaches its blood-soaked conclusion! Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells is definitely a rampage story: Rey is hired to retrieve a kit-bag full of Fentanyl from a stash house, and shit inevitably goes sideways.
A reworked version of this tale (retitled as Stash House) went on to appear in my brutally enjoyable short story collection Ten Pints of Blood (or ‘ten bloody readers’, as it should probably be called!). Ten Pints of Blood also includes Spine Farm, a grisly cold case investigation that takes place at Christmas – making it my most Christmassy book yet!
I love the cold case storylines, as they are a welcome change of pace, and the stakes are generally very different. As is the case with a lot of my Christmas stories, The Naughty List is more light-hearted than my other material and examines the aftermath of a vicious Securicor van robbery that took place in 1991.
Things To Do In Devon When You're Dead... 