Play Dead - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael A. Arnzen's is the author of the Bram Stoker Award winning novel, Grave Markings (Dell Books/Delirium Books) and publishes the acclaimed website, gorelets.com. His titles at Raw Dog Screaming Press include Play Dead, his long-anticipated second novel, and 100 Jolts, a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection Publishing horror, humor, criticism and suspense since 1989, Arnzen's writing has won the International Horror Guild Award and has been reprinted in The Year's Best Horror Stories. His bibliography includes the books Fluid Mosaic, Freakcidents, Rigormarole, Writhing in Darkness, and Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems.

Arnzen holds a Ph.D. in English and presently teaches graduate studies in "Writing Popular Fiction" at Seton Hill University in Western Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife and cats. His current project is a twisted kidnapping novel.

Aus dem Klappentext

"PLAY DEAD reads like white lightning. The wonderfully grungy characters and staccato-fast chapters grab you by the face, haul you in, and won't let go, while the richly metaphoric style begs for savoring on every page. Arnzen wears a wry gaming grin even as he reminds us the universe is little more than a horrorshow comprised of pure plain chance. This terrific (in all senses of the word) novel hits the ground running and just won't stop." Lance Olsen, author of Hideous Beauties and Girl Imagined by Chance

"With PLAY DEAD, Arnzen has created a masterpiece of eloquent depravity. It features all of the sins of Vegas, slathering on heaping portions of insane greed, savage sex, irredeemable blasphemy, and skull-crunching violence. You'll get sucked in on the first page, and won't put the book down until you reach the breathless finale. Arnzen writes like someone has a shotgun to his head, and Mike might be the one pulling the trigger..." JA Konrath, author of Bloody Mary

Rezensionen

Johnny Frieze is a Vegas card shark accustomed to winning big and living large until his luck hits the skids and he finds himself living out of a shelter, minus even his lucky gold tooth, surrendered in a last, failed bet. With nothing left to lose, or so he thinks, he is shocked and intrigued to discover that his shelter mates are not only fellow gamblers down on their luck but are also furtively enmeshed in a high-stakes game in which the cards are manufactured by the players, and the winnings are extracted in men's lives. Johnny can't resist the action and is soon the willing captive of Butcher Boy, a ruthless game run by mysterious and powerful Winston, who deals out, in addition to cards, sobering lessons about the difference between chance and fate. Established contemporary horror author Arnzen serves up a chilling brew of gritty dialogue and hard-boiled, James -Ellroy-style action that, by means of unexpected plot twists, never fails to keep readers alert and guessing. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Arnzen (Bram Stoker award-winner Grave Markings) sets his second horror novel in a nightmarish "Vegas," where a group of desperate homeless men play an ultra-high-stakes "Butcher Boy" card game run by casino owner Nebo Tarrochi. To qualify for the game, each player must create a suit of cards based on lurid photographs of dead people, and this cautionary tale grows sticky with relentless gore as the victims pile up. The novel's hero is Johnny Frieze, a compulsive but likeable gambler who has bottomed out at a homeless shelter after ripping out his own gold tooth to stake himself one last hand. He joins the game after learning the payoff is a cool million, money he hopes to share with Gin, a sexy shelter cook (and undercover P.I.). The other players add up to a gang of stereotypical psychos: Shorty, seemingly autistic and overweight, Preacher, a religious zealot, Ferret, an American Indian who doesn't drink but kills remorselessly, Axe, a bigoted creep who "folds" early, and Winston, Nebo's neat-freak assistant. Johnny is desperate but no cold-blooded killer, so rather than murder to make the death photos, he tries to fake them, with dubious results. In a shakily plotted, over-the-top resolution, the game collapses like a house of cards.
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