This was announced today:
The book Crystal Lake Publishing announced today is Flesh of All Sorrows, a dark police-procedural thriller. When Crystal Lake asked me to write a little something about it, here’s what I gave them:
“Flesh of All Sorrows began with a question: What would happen to a child who was raised by a man who was himself raised by a psychopath? I’ve written true crime, and studied, written about, and spoken on psychopathy, sociopathy, serial killers and mass murderers, but I’d never seen that question answered. So I decided to explore it myself. I combined that deep study with extensive review of police and policing, through citizen’s police academies in two different cities, ride-alongs in three cities and the US Border Patrol, and acquaintanceships with law-enforcement officers in various places. Then I took those disparate elements and crafted a character-driven thriller that explores those issues in a riveting, twisty tale.”
You can see their full announcement here (and while you’re on the website, take a look at the other great books they’ve published over the years!)
I’ll also mention that readers of my Major Crimes Squad: Phoenix trilogy will encounter a couple of familiar characters in this one, because they take place in the same universe and the same part of the country–the one I happen to live in. That trilogy is currently out of print, but it’ll be back in 2026 (probably close to the launch of Flesh) with some fun extras.
In my last blog entry from a couple of months ago, I posted about another new book from another new publisher. I still haven’t started on that one because I’ve been busy with some other projects, but I’ll get to it soon.
But there’s other new work on the immediate horizon. First up is Sword of the War-Monster, a graphic novel that I co-wrote with pal and occasional writing partner Shannon Eric Denton (we wrote a comic book miniseries called Graveslinger a while back). SOTW-M goes live on Kickstarter any minute now, and I hope you’ll take a look and consider backing it. It’s fun, slightly raunchy, action-packed sword & sorcery adventure featuring Skullex, the greatest monster S&S hero ever.
Shannon’s work over the years speaks for itself: “Shannon Eric Denton has worked as a director and writer for virtually every animation studio in Hollywood on both Oscar and Emmy appreciated material. He was a producer on SyFy’s live-action series Con Man starring Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion & Shannon’s mentor Stan Lee, among others.”
The incredible art is by the great David Hartman. If you don’t recognize the name, you’ll recognize the work: “David Hartman is an acclaimed illustrator and director known for his work on cult horror films like Phantasm: Ravager and animated hits including Transformers Prime and Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. With a style rooted in horror, fantasy, and pulp, his art has appeared in comics, music videos, and on album covers for Rob Zombie and beyond.”
Our designer and letterer is the mega-talented Kristen Fitzner Denton: “Kristen Fitzner Denton is a Harvey Award and Ringo Award nominated designer on numerous comic books and graphic novels. In TV/Film she’s been an animator and VFX artist on projects ranging from Jimmy Neutron to Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. Her comics work includes Todd McFarlane’s long running Image Comics series Spawn. She has worked in publishing with IDW Publishing, Komikwerks, Monster Forge Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Stan Lee Media and Titan Comics.”
What’s more, as you’ll see on the Kickstarter page, I’m writing an original War-Monster novella to go along with the graphic novel! I most recently wrote sword & sorcery fiction for the anthology Thrilling Adventure Yarns 2025, where “The Thing in the Crate”–the first story featuring new S&S hero Castian D’Amicor, appeared. I’ve loved S&S for decades, and wrote it long ago for an Age of Conan trilogy and a D&D: Dark Sun novel, but it had been a while.
The brief version of this post is that I have new stuff coming your way soon! And lots more to write! Flesh of All Sorrows is complete, as is the Sword of the War-Monster GN script, but I have two novellas to write and another novel to pitch and then write. So enough writing here–I’ve got to get back to work.
Thank you, as ever, for reading my stuff!
#Tags: books, comic books, graphic novels, sword & sorcery, thrillers, writing
