NIGHTJACK

An original to digital novel from Crossroad Press - first publication in any format. Cover art by the brilliant, one-and-only Caniglia.

On the day of his release from a mental institution Pace is taken “hostage” by Faust, Pia, and Hayden, three escapees from the hospital who disappeared after the presumed rape and beating of Cassandra Kaltzas, daughter of the Greek munitions tycoon Alexandra Kaltzas. Each suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, experiencing complex delusions and sometimes fantastical identities. Pace tries to piece together what happened when apparently one of their alternate personalities tried to kill Cassandra.

Pace himself is an alternate of William Pacella, a man whose wife died in a restaurant fire set by a local mobster for insurance money. William Pacella “dies” so that Nightjack can be born–a new personality who may or may not be Jack the Ripper.

For unknown reasons, Pace is able to see others’ delusions–when alternates take over members of the group, Pace alone is able to interact with each persona. Included among them is Princess Eirrin, a ten thousand year old sorceress and heir to the Atlantean throne; Smoker, a half-breed gunman from 1880s Arizona; Thaddeus, friend and companion to St. Paul; and the ancient Greek architect Daedalus, who soared among the clouds with his home-made wax wings and watched his son perish in the sea.

Now the four find themselves under attack from assassins sent by Kaltzas to punish the person who attacked his daughter. Conflicting stories abound about Cassandra–whether she was raped, if she was perhaps murdered, or if she and Pace somehow crossed paths even before the hospital. In fact, she may not even exist.

As the attacks persist, the group is forced to face their own personal traumas and terrors, and go in search of Kaltzas in Greece. There, on an island where fantasy, myth, and truth are all entangled, Pace and his many alternates must sift through madness and deceit to unlock the mystery. And everyone may wind up dead unless Pace willingly unleashes the most brutal killer of all: Nightjack.

This book is available in MOBI (Kindle) EPUB (Sony / Nook) PDF (Adobe) and PRC (Mobipocket) formats. Please choose your preference from the drop-down menu below before proceeding to checkout.

Update

Above is the cover art to my next noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT, due out from Chizine Publications in mid-March.

Here's the synopsis:

He's nameless, faceless, and has nothing left to lose — and now he has a gun. Alone except for his beloved bulldog, Churchill, a despondent man who's failed at his career, his marriage, and his own simple hopes makes his way across the fierce American landscape and the spectacle of his own bitter past. As he heads home to his distant brother, he witnesses various tragedies and crimes which bring out the killer in him

Tom Piccirilli gives us a suspense story for our current struggling times, taken directly from a broken heart. It is full of realism, grit, and a depth of the dark streets that give voice to the fears most of us can barely imagine. The terror of loss, the overwhelming dread of failure, the desperate push towards crime, the horror of missed-out, mediocre dreams. And the all-too average explosive rage.

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Over at Examiner.com, I'm Blu Gilliand's second victim (following the great Norm Partridge) for a new feature called "Interview 5.5.5." That means I'll be answering five questions about five different topics over a period of five days. DAY ONE is Tom Piccirilli on Writing. And DAY TWO is about my early days in Horror.

SPECTERS IN COAL DUST is new antho featuring fiction by Gary Braunbeck, Christopher Golden, Elizabeth Massie, Bev Vincent, Lee Thomas, Steve Rasnic Tem, and yers truly.

I have a new blog up over on DO SOME DAMAGE, wherein I get maudlin over my lost youth and the onrush of Autumn. Come on and check it out.