James Sallis

Now a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, with Oscar Isaac and Albert Brooks in a Nicolas Winding Refn Film. Screenplay by Hossein Amini. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The film won the Award for Best Director at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival "Much later, as he sat with his back against an inside wall of a Motel 6 just north of Phoenix, watching the pool of blood lap toward...

Author James Sallis is acclaimed for his taut mysteries featuring world-weary ex-Memphis cop John Turner, including Cripple Creek. Assuming the role of deputy sheriff in a small town near the city, Turner investigates sordid cases in a community that time is slowly forgetting. Here his past catches up to him when his son rolls down Main Street riding in what appears to be a stolen car.

Shortlisted for the Anthony, Nebula, Edgar, Shamus, and Gold Dagger Awards, best-selling author James Sallis is a master of the gritty crime drama. The Killer Is Dying tracks the fortunes of three men of vastly different ages, backgrounds, and ambitions. Though they never meet, a hired killer on his last job, a burned out detective, and a young boy plagued by nightmares have their lives intersect in compelling ways in the scorching metropolis of Phoenix,...

A brilliant new protagonist and his memorable community are introduced in the latest masterpiece by acclaimed novelist James Sallis. In his celebrated career, James Sallis has created some of the most finely drawn protagonists in crime fiction, all of them thoughtful observers of the human condition: Lew Griffin, the black New Orleans private investigator; retired detective John Turner; the unnamed wheelman in Drive. Dr. Lamar Hale will now join the...

The mystery of Lew Griffin is revealed in this concluding novel of an honored series. In his old house in uptown New Orleans, Griffin is alone. His relationship with Deborah is falling apart; his son, David, had disappeared again. And Lew is directionless: he hasn't written anything in years, he no longer teaches. Now he stands in a dark room, staring out the window. Behind him, on the bed, is a body. He thinks if he doesn't speak, doesn't think about...

Lew Griffin has quit the detective business and withdrawn to the safety of his old home in New Orleans' Garden District, where he copes with his past by transforming it into fiction. But following the death of a close friend, he returns to the streets—not only the urban ones he has conquered, but also those of the rural South that he escaped long ago—to search for the runaway daughter he didn't know that his friend had. Griffin discovers that...

As Lew Griffin leaves a New Orleans music club with an older white woman he's just met, someone fires a shot and Lew goes down. When he comes to, Griffin discovers that most of a year has gone by since that night. What happened? Who was the woman? Which of them was the target? Who was the sniper? There are too many pieces missing, too few facts, and a powerful need to know why a year has been stolen from his life. Weaving Griffin's search for identity—one...

James Sallis' stories about ex-cop, ex-con, and ex-psychotherapist Turner have garnered starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. Back working as a deputy in a small Tennessee town, Turner's hands are full when the sheriff and the only other deputy are shot and the shooter escapes the county jail. Tracking the criminal to Memphis, Turner uncovers disturbing connections to organized crime.

Sarah Jane Pullman is a good cop with a complicated past. From her small-town chicken-farming roots through her runaway adolescence, court-ordered Army stint, ill-advised marriage and years slinging scrambled eggs over greasy spoon griddles, Sarah Jane unfolds her life story, a parable about memory, atonement, and finding shape in chaos. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she is named the de facto sheriff of a rural town, investigating the mysterious...

In celebration of our 20th anniversary, Poisoned Pen Press has commissioned original short stories from thirty-five of its authors, past and present. Some names will be immediately recognizable to mystery aficionados-Kerry Greenwood with her Phryne Fisher mysteries, now also a popular television program, or Laurie R. King who has charmed Sherlockians worldwide with her beloved Mary Russell series. Some have gone on to big deals with the big leagues-Carolyn

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