Howling Legion (Skinners, Book 2)

Welcome to the nightmare . . .

There is a world you don't know about, inhabited by supernatural creatures of darkness—vampires, werewolves, and all manner of savage, impossible beasts that live for terror and slaughter and blood. They are all around us but you cannot see them, for knowledge of their presence—so close and so hungry—would surely drive any ordinary human insane.

But for centuries a special breed of hunter has kept the monsters at bay, preventing them from breaking through the increasingly fragile barriers protecting our mortal realm.

These guardians are called skinners.

But beware . . . for there are very few of them left.

Horrible things move through the shadows of our world—bloodsuckers, Full Bloods and mongrel beasts, shapeshifters and minor freaks. For centuries creature hunters known as Skinners have protected humankind. But who protects the Skinners . . . from madness?

Unbeknownst to the human population, a pestilence is raging through an unseen community of low-level monstrosities. What seems, at first glance, a boon for the mortal cause has horrific connotations—as the Skinner team of Cole Warnecki and Paige Strobel races across the Midwest to uncover the shocking secret of the “Mud Flu.” For a nightmare of destruction and blood sacrifice is looming—one born of an unholy meeting nearly two centuries ago—that will pit man against beast, and Skinner against Skinner.

A legendary Skinner has passed. Among the articles he left behind are runes, potions, and powerful weapons to aid in the ongoing war against the unspeakable creatures that prowl the shadows outside normal human consciousness. But there is something else: the remains of a terrifying beast no other Skinner has ever encountered. And it isn't dead.

Skinners, partners, lovers, Cole Warnecki and Paige Strobel are well armed with the tools the late Jonah Lancroft provided. But even his best weapons may not be enough to defeat the monstrosity they now face. A new terror has risen up to infect them both with its virulent malevolence, even as Paige confronts the secrets of her astonishing past. The purest evil walks the world again—the First Deceiver, humankind's darkest nightmare, the self-proclaimed King of the Full Bloods.

Shapeshifters, vampires, and all manner of monstrosities are raining hell down on a small western town—which is why Skinner Paige Strobel is headed there with a band of Old World Skinners who have been battling monsters for centuries using antiquated, yet oddly effective weaponry. Meanwhile, Paige's sometime-partner/sometime-lover Cole Warnecki is being held prisoner by persons—or things—unknown: framed, tortured, and beaten for the slaughter of cops at a vampire warehouse in Denver.

For Paige and Cole, a search for answers has become a battle for survival. The future of unsuspecting humankind is balanced on a knife blade. And the Apocalypse is a certainty unless they can uncover the truth behind a terrible force powering monsters and hunters alike . . . and find out why—after horrific werewolf attacks in KC and bloody carnage in Philly—Skinners are suddenly, inexplicably, turning against Skinners . . .

The human race is under siege—with shapeshifters, vampires, and half-blood werewolves freely prowling the streets of the world’s cities . . . and Full Bloods about to descend en masse from out of the dark wilderness. The police and the military are helpless, and only the Skinners can forestall the tactical nuke strikes the Army has planned as a last resort.

Skinners, partners, lovers, Paige Strobel and Cole Warnecki know Armageddon is at hand, and seek a union with the mysterious European blood hunters, the Gypsy Amriany, as a final, desperate means to preventing the monster apocalypse. But power-mad traitors from the ranks of their own kind could doom humanity’s valiant efforts to survive. And the only possible outcome at the end of the ultimate war is total extinction. But for whom . . . or what?

Supernatural fantasy has a new antihero

Life sucks, and then you die. Or, if you're James Stark, you spend eleven years in Hell as a hitman before finally escaping, only to land back in the hell-on-earth that is Los Angeles.

Now Stark's back, and ready for revenge. And absolution, and maybe even love. But when his first stop saddles him with an abusive talking head, Stark discovers that the road to absolution and revenge is much longer than you'd expect, and both Heaven and Hell have their own ideas for his future.

Resurrection sucks. Saving the world is worse.

Darkly twisted, irreverent, and completely hilarious, Sandman Slim is the breakthrough novel by an acclaimed author.

Supernatural fantasy's best antihero returns, in the high-octane follow-up to Richard Kadrey's acclaimed Sandman Slim

James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, crawled out of Hell, took bloody revenge for his girlfriend's murder, and saved the world along the way. After that, what do you do for an encore? You take a lousy job tracking down monsters for money. It's a depressing gig, but it pays for your beer and cigarettes. But in L.A., things can always get worse.

Like when Lucifer comes to town to supervise his movie biography and drafts Stark as his bodyguard. Sandman Slim has to swim with the human and inhuman sharks of L.A.'s underground power elite. That's before the murders start. And before he runs into the Czech porn star who isn't quite what she seems. Even before all those murdered people start coming back from the dead and join a zombie army that will change our world and Stark's forever.

Death bites. Life is worse. All things considered, Hell's not looking so bad.