New Releases by Brian Francis Slattery

With the enemy always two steps ahead, Sal and Team Three seek new answers from an old Oracle. After being sent on a wild goose chase in the latest game of cat and mouse with the mysterious Mr. Norse, the team decides they need to get ahead of their competition in the hunt for the Codex Umbra. With no other options, they turn to old friends and even older magic: specifically, the Oracle of Delphi. Sal grows suspicious of her own sleeping habits and Asanti enjoys some field time but everyone learns the deadly dangers of playing with prophecy. This episode is brought to you by team-writer Margaret Dunlap and takes the globe-trotting team from our time to another, and from Italy and Egypt, to Greece and back.

When it comes to tattoos in the City of Sin, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. The Team must travel to Las Vegas when the human canvases of a tattoo competition show start dying. The list of potential magical murders is colorful and well documented across episodes of Ink Stainz: Vegas—but appearances can be deceiving and the team must check their prejudices at customs and investigate the bristly and well inked lot before time runs out and more victims fall prey to the demonic ink. This episode is brought to you by team-writer Mur Lafferty and brings some Vegas vice and trash TV to our story. Get ready for deadly drama because no one is here to make friends.

Grace’s secret history comes to light. While all the members of Team Three have their secrets, only Grace seems willing to guard hers with fists of fury. Finally fed up with being kept in the dark, Sal takes matters into her own hands and engages in a friendly stalking operation to learn just what Grace’s deal is. A lit candle and flashbacks to 1930s China help illuminate matters—but things are never simple when magic is in play. This episode is brought to you by team-writer Max Gladstone and reveals the backstory of one of most mysterious cast members while skipping through time, place, and emotion.

Weather Alert: Tornado eating titans on the loose in Oklahoma. There might not be much upon the open, wind-swept planes of Oklahoma—but magic, like life, finds a way to thrive nevertheless. In this week’s episode the Team is literally blown away when they touch down in a tiny country town, utterly destroyed by horrifying monsters the locals call Tornado Eaters. The town is past saving but the threat remains—it will take all the Society can throw at them and even that might not be enough. Readers, and Sal, will finally get their first look at just what heat Team One is packing . . . but quickly learn that words wreak more havoc than even the most imaginative weapons. This episode is brought to you by team-writer Brian Francis Slattery who once again brings the Weird, this time to the West—but it’s not all fun and monsters in Oklahoma and the Society’s toll of life and limb is rising.

Good intentions in Glasgow lead to disastrous results. Sal and Asanti leave the rest of the Team in the lurch when they jet off to Scotland to attend the funeral of the archivists’ mentor. Something is amiss in the Dear Green Place, however, as the pair land to discover the entire city has become obsessed with a restaurant (which just happens to be owned by the deceased mentor’s only living relative). They beat the crowds to get a table, only to find the fight has just begun and they left their muscle at home. This episode is brought to you by team-writer Mur Lafferty and explores how magic, like food, is rarely cut and dry.

Little is at it seems on the high seas when a magical book wreaks havoc on a luxury yacht. The Team saves on flight costs as the newest mystery happens around the corner. A tip from a local antiquarian doesn’t make it to the Team in time and they are left with a once-bookstore-now-rubble-pile, a missing magical tome, and very few clues beyond a helpful tour guide (one might even say too helpful . . .). Tracking the missing book to a luxury yacht, the Team gets less of the high-end boating experience and more of the demon-on-the-loose nightmare. All aboard the Fair Weather; but no smooth sailing ahead. This episode is brought to you by team-writer Margaret Dunlap and introduces readers (and our heroine) to not only the true dangers of Bookburning, but to mysterious secrets even cloudier than the Societas Librium Occultorum.

Sal and Team Three travel to Madrid, through a breathing door, and into a lonely man’s weirdest dreams. Sal Brooks, newest member of Team Three of the Societas Librium Occultorum, is settling into her job and apartment in Rome. In this episode we meet the rest of the team and get a tour of the Black Archives (pro tip: don’t touch anything), before being whisked off on Sal’s first mission: investigate a magical disturbance in the heart of Madrid, Spain. There they find a breathing apartment door, little girls being held hostage, and some furniture that is far too alive for good taste. First days on the job are never easy... This episode is brought to you by team-writer Brian Francis Slattery and trips down a rabbit hole (or rather, through an apartment door) into some thoroughly New Weird territory. Fans of Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy will find much to enjoy.

Detective Sally Brooks investigates an unusual robbery, and discovers that magic is real—and hungry! NYPD Detective Sal Brooks is no rookie—but even the most hardened cop would think twice when they see their brother open a book and become . . . well . . . something entirely not their brother. When her attempts to solve the case cross paths with a mysterious team led by a priest, she starts to realize that the world is far more than what is seems, and, just maybe, magic is real—and hungry. This episode is the first in a 16-part Serial, Bookburners, presented by Serial Box. From a team of writers, this collaborative effort unfolds an epic urban fantasy narrative across an entire season in weekly installments.

*** Named a Kirkus Reviews Starred Title in Their 10/01/14 Issue *** In 1968 two boys are born into a large family, both named for their grandfather, Peter Henry Hightower. One boy—Peter—grows up in Africa and ends up a journalist in Granada. The other—Petey—becomes a minor criminal, first in Cleveland and then in Kiev. In 1995, Petey runs afoul of his associates and disappears. But the criminals, bent on revenge, track down the wrong cousin, and the Peter in Granada finds himself on the run. He bounces from one family member to the next, piecing together his cousin''s involvement in international crime while learning the truth about his family''s complicated history. Along the way the original Peter Henry Hightower''s story is revealed, until it catches up with that of his children, revealing how Peter and Petey have been living in their grandfather''s shadow all along. The novel takes a look at capitalism and organized crime in the 20th century, the legend of the self-made man, and what money can do to people. Like Jeffrey Eugenides'' Middlesex, The Family Hightower stretches across both generations and continents, bearing the weight of family secrets and the inevitable personal toll they take on loved ones despite our best intentions.

Voici l''histoire de trois hommes portant le même nom : Peter Henry Hightower. Le premier est né au début du XXe siècle. Il s''appelait Petro Garko quand il était un petit immigré ukrainien, élevé dans les quartiers pauvres de Cleveland. Puis Peter Ukulélé, quand il a choisi la carrière de bootlegger et de commis de la mafia russe. Il est devenu Peter Henry Hightower quand il a fallu blanchir la colossale fortune qu''il avait amassée à coups d''assassinats et d''extorsions. Le deuxième, surnommé Petey, est l''un de ses petits-fils, une petite frappe sans envergure qui s''embarque dons un réseau du crime international. Le troisième, surnommé Pete, est le cousin du précédent n''a pas hérité du gène criminel, grâce à son père qui l''a conçu en Afrique et exfiltré depuis toujours du clan Higthower. Pete ne sait rien des siens. Quel hasard lui vaut de porter le même nom que celui de son imbécile d''être pris pour lui ? A moins que le hasard et qu''il s''agisse d''une dette que doit payer aux cadavres qu''elle laisse derrière elle. Ou d''une morale fondée sur l''irresponsabilité de se soustraire aux liens du sang, celui qui court dans nos veines et celui qui a coulé sur l''asphalte.

From the author of the critically acclaimed literary SF novels Spaceman Blues and Liberation comes an incandescent and thrilling post-apocalyptic tale in the vein of 1984 or The Road. In the not-distant-enough future, a man takes a boat trip up the Susquehanna River with his most trusted friend, intent on reuniting with his son. But the man is pursued by an army, and his own harrowing past; and the familiar American landscape has been savaged by war and climate change until it is nearly unrecognizable. Lost Everything is a stunning novel about family and faith, what we are afraid may come to be, and how to wring hope from hopelessness. Lost Everything is the winner of the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

From the author of the literary pulp phenomenon Spaceman Blues comes a future history cautionary tale, a heist movie in the style of a hippie novel. Liberation is a speculation on life in near-future America after the country suffers an economic cataclysm that leads to the resurgence of ghosts of its past such as the human slave trade. Our heroes are the Slick Six, a group of international criminals who set out to alleviate the worst of these conditions and put America on the road to recovery. Liberation is a story about living down the past, personally and nationally; about being able to laugh at the punch line to the long, dark joke of American history. Slattery''s prose moves seamlessly between present and past, action and memory. With Liberation, he celebrates the resilience and ingenuity of the American spirit. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Painted in browns and grays and sparked by sudden fires, Spaceman Blues is a literary retro-pulp science-fiction-mystery-superhero novel, the debut of a true voice of the future, and a cult classic in the making. When Manuel Rodrigo de Guzmán González disappears, Wendell Apogee decides to find out where he has gone and why. But in order to figure out what happened to Manuel, Wendell must contend with parties, cockfights, and chases; an underground city whose people live in houses suspended from cavern ceilings; urban weirdos and alien assassins; immigrants, the black market, flight, riots, and religious cults. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.