Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera

Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera
Author: Mark Troy
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Three shadowy denizens of an online gaming chatroom—an undocumented refugee, a socially isolated teenager, and a sexual predator—make an abandoned Chicago stockyard run red with blood once again. Getting off the bus from El Paso, Balam, the Mayan jaguar, arrives in South Chicago, hungry, broke, and cold, hoping to find MagcPanda, a girl he had befriended online. Balam believes MagcPanda has fallen prey to an online predator and has been trafficked to Chicago. His only link to her is a laptop stolen from a refugee shelter. Wandering the streets of the alien city, he is dismayed to find that Chicago is fraught with more dangers than any he had experienced in Guatemala or on the trek though the mountains and deserts of Mexico. When gangbangers take his laptop, destroying his hopes of rescuing MagicPanda, Balam is ready to admit defeat, only to get help from an unlikely source—the owner of a taco truck whose food is inedible, but whose “special” is sought after. Armed with the “special,” Balam resumes the hunt which terminates in the abandoned killing field.

Guns + Tacos Vol. 3

Guns + Tacos Vol. 3
Author: Eric Beetner
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2021-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

There’s a taco truck in Chicago known among a certain segment of the population for its daily specials. Late at night and during the wee hours of the morning, it isn’t the food selection that attracts customers, it’s the illegal weapons available with the special order. Each episode of Guns & Tacos features the story of one Chicagoland resident who visits the taco truck seeking a solution to life’s problems, a solution that always comes in a to-go bag. Episode 7: Burritos & Bullets by Eric Beetner Episode 8: Jalapeño Poppers and a Flare Gun by Michael Bracken & Trey R. Barker Episode 9: Four Shrimp Tacos and a Walther P38 by Alec Cizak Episodes 10-12 of Season Two are featured in Guns + Tacos Vol. 4.

Guns + Tacos Vol. 4

Guns + Tacos Vol. 4
Author: Ann Aptaker
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2021-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

There’s a taco truck in Chicago known among a certain segment of the population for its daily specials. Late at night and during the wee hours of the morning, it isn’t the food selection that attracts customers, it’s the illegal weapons available with the special order. Each episode of Guns & Tacos features the story of one Chicagoland resident who visits the taco truck seeking a solution to life’s problems, a solution that always comes in a to-go bag. Episode 10: A Taco, a T-Bird, a Beretta and One Furious Night by Ann Aptaker Episode 11: Sopa and a Streetsweeper by Ryan Sayles Episode 12: Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera by Mark Troy Episodes 7-9 of Season Two are featured in Guns + Tacos Vol. 3.

Sopa and a Streetsweeper

Sopa and a Streetsweeper
Author: Ryan Sayles
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Total Pages: 46
Release: 2020-11-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Beau is a hero. He’s also the kind of guy who, when he patrons a taco truck, is as interested in their food as he is their black-market firearms. And the special is soup paired with a streetsweeper shotgun. When Beau puts the special to use at a Black Friday sales event, he unintentionally starts a full-blown, storewide shoot-out. But he escapes, and takes with him an abandoned little girl he rescued. Maybe she’d like some soup too. In his apartment, oblivious to the fierce manhunt for the child, Beau discusses just how badly he screwed up the Black Friday shooting with his underhanded neighbors. Then SWAT arrives, but SWAT’s never dealt with someone like Beau. Concerned for the little girl’s safety, Beau has to reach deep down to become the protector she needs. After the fires have been put out, the bodies sorted and the wreckage cleared, Beau’s gonna be hungry. Fortunately, soup is very filling and a lot of taco trucks offer it.

Splintered Loyalty

Splintered Loyalty
Author: Mark Troy
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Seventy-five years following the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry, an elderly Nisei hires Ava Rome to find out how his best friend, a Japanese-American Buddhist priest, died in the Tule Lake Internment Camp. In the course of her investigation she uncovers another cold case, the rape and murder of a Japanese-American teenager on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack. Was the same person responsible for both crimes? Ava suspects so. She travels to the Tule Lake site in Northern California where an attack on her life proves that the cold cases are deadly hot. Other people close to the case are murdered on orders from a powerful individual, whose reach stretches from Hawaii to halfway across the continental United States, and who will kill to keep the past secret. Returning to Honolulu, Ava experiences a devastating act of betrayal before solving the murders and revealing a seven decades-long history of evil. Praise for SPLINTERED LOYALTY: “What happened decades ago that WH Global will kill to cover up? Former Army MP Ava Rome is determined to find out. A non-stop thriller with a strong back story of people caught up in the World War II internment of Americans of Japanese descent in Hawaii.” —Terry Shames, Macavity Award-winning author of the Samuel Craddock mysteries “Splintered Loyalty is an exhilarating plunge into a dark past. Mark Troy’s heroine, Ava Rome, is tough, talented and tenacious and riveting to watch! Bravo!” —Matt Coyle, author of the Shamus, Anthony and Lefty Award-winning Rick Cahill crime series “Long one of my favorite short-story writers, Mark Troy proves himself equally deft as a novelist. Splintered Loyalty, the latest in the Ava Rome private eye series, finds Rome digging deep into the past to investigate the death of a Buddhist priest during WWII. The tension slowly builds as Rome uncovers long-hidden secrets that lead to an explosive conclusion. I highly recommend Splintered Loyalty.” —Michael Bracken, Anthony-, Edgar-, and Shamus-Award nominee “Ava Rome is a great protagonist—hard-boiled and humane—who tackles historical injustice with style in this multifaceted thriller. A gripping and satisfying read.” —Tom Mead, author of Death and the Conjuror “Mark Troy’s Splintered Loyalty is one part Cold Case Files mixed with two parts Magnum, PI. Ava Rome is sexy, tough and enjoys a good vodka (or three.) If I’m ever in trouble in Honolulu, she’s my first phone call.” —Tim O’Mara, author of the Raymond Donne series “Ultra-tough protector of the weak, Ava Rome works out of the island of Oahu where during World War II, a Japanese priest died in an incarceration camp. Ava promises to look into how the man died 77 years before. She doesn’t know what to expect, but it isn’t exactly what she finds, nor is it what she anticipates being of such current importance. Author Mark Troy surprises his readers and makes a true heroine of his smart and powerful protagonist.” —G. Miki Hayden, teaching Writing the Thriller and Writing the Mystery at Writer’s Digest University online

Black Cat Weekly #122

Black Cat Weekly #122
Author: Mark Troy
Publisher: Black Cat Weekly
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2023-12-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

This is the last issue of the year—which explains why we have a New Year’s story from Elizabeth Elwood (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman). We also have original mysteries from Mark Troy (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken) and Nikki Knight (a new Grace the Hit Mom story), plus a complete short story collection by Edgar Wallace, plus a solve-it-yourself puzzler from Hal Charles. Five classics this time on the science fiction & fantasy front, from some of the great short story writers of the field: Robert F. Young, Jack Sharkey, Harry Harrison, Thomas M. Disch, and August Derleth (one of Derleth’s rare excursions into science fiction, in fact…in this case, a robot story.) Here’s the complete lineup: Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure: “Your Table’s Waiting,” by Mark Troy [Michael Bracken Presents short story] “The Hot Car,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery] “All Decked Out for New Year’s Eve,” by Elizabeth Elwood [Barb Goffman Presents short story] “No Angels Here,” by Nikki Knight [short story, Grace the Hit Mom series] Mrs. William Jones—and Bill, by Edgar Wallace [short story collection] Science Fiction & Fantasy: “Lord of Rays” by Robert F. Young [short story] “The Smart Ones,” by Jack Sharkey [short story] “Down To Earth,” by Harry Harrison [short story] “Utopia? Never!” by Thomas M. Disch [short story] “The Maugham Obsession,” by August Derleth [short story]

Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America

Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America
Author: Emilie L. Bergmann
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 1990
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0520065530

“This collection, because of its exceptional theoretical coherence and sophistication, is qualitatively superior to the most frequently consulted anthologies on Latin American women’s history and literature . . . [and] represents a new, more theoretically rigorous stage in the feminist debate on Latin American women.”—Elizabeth Garrels, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Diamonds for the Dead

Diamonds for the Dead
Author: Alan Orloff
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2010
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 073871948X

Coming home to Reston, Virginia, to bury his estranged father, Josh Handleman gets the shock of his life when he finds out that his thrifty father is actually a wealthy man who collected diamonds, but when Josh tries to locate the gems he discovers they are missing and begins to wonder if his father's death was really an accident or if it was murder.

The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry

The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry
Author: Cecilia Vicuña
Publisher:
Total Pages: 603
Release: 2009
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0195124545

The most inclusive single-volume anthology of Latin American poetry intranslation ever produced.