Showing results by publisher "Crossroad Press" in Literature & Fiction

Gideon Sunday, an ex-semi-professional American Football player, goes to his pantry to retrieve an awful bottle of his (dead) sister's fruit preserves. When he gets there, he discovers a meadow in his pantry. He closes the door, takes a few breaths, and begins to investigate. Upon discovering that A) no one is playing a trick on him, B) there really IS a meadow in his cupboard, and C) there is something three-quarters of ugly coming out of it, he decides to beat a monster to death with a baseball bat.

"Guxx Unfufadoo is my name. And killing wizards is my game!" Thus spoke the dreaded rhyming demon, come from the Netherhells, to munch a bunch of the great Ebenezum. Only it didn't quite work out that way. Ebenezum lived, cursed by Guxx with a mighty curse that he should henceforth be allergic to magic. So Ebenezum and his hapless apprentice Wuntvor must journey to the City of Forbidden Delights to seek a cure.

Gary Karkofsky, aka Merciless the supervillain without mercy, is presently the most disliked supervillain in the world. Superheroes don't want to just throw him in jail, they want to deliver an epic beat down for ending their golden age by killing Merciful, the superhero with mercy.

Blue Hill is a story of mystery, memory, faith, forgiveness, and acceptance - a story of lies and truths, of what is real and what is fleeting. Set in 1997, Blue Hill also is a fictional chronicle of an epochal real time: the dawning of the Internet Age, when the culture churned and the world was entering a virtual other-existence. Chat rooms. AOL. Dial-up. Floppy discs. Files measured in kilobytes. The dot-com boom. PlayStation. Nintendo. Super Mario 64. Remember?

Appalachian Galapagos follows the smash success of Scary Rednecks and Other Inbred Horrors with authors Weston Ochse and David Whitman returning us to the world of rednecks, human-skin beer cozies, urban legends come to life, southern mythology, drunkards flying in lawn chairs, contemplations on the nature of god, and the monsters within us all. Galapagos cements its ownership of the genre opening with a grand opus of a novella co-written by both authors, featuring backwoods churches, boat rides, and bigfoots.

He turns into a bat. Drinks the blood of the living. And never pays income taxes. He's the Vampire Lamar, and since he's come to New England, the body count's been rising every time he rises. But even eternal nightlife can take on a chill without companionship. The unholy fiend-in-need seeks a down-to-earth, flesh-and-blood girl who's his type for a very long-term relationship. But where there are vampires, there are vampire hunters. Unfortunately their stakeout for an eccentric "nobleman" sends them chasing a mortal target named Kent Montana.

Something very strange is going on in Bowling Green, Kentucky. A masked terrorist attacks a local politician and a news reporter at a minor league baseball game. A Gay Pride parade is bombed. A veteran's home is invaded and taken over by new ownership, and every resident that is not Caucasian has suddenly...disappeared.

Roger Gordon's life was dull until a Captain Crusader Decoder Ring unlocked a door to the world of B-movies. Now his life is filled with adventure as he frolics through the silver screen's weirdest westerns, thrillers, and romances.

Someone in town has a macabre passion for beautiful young men. Healthy, gym-toned male bodies keep turning up, tortured, drained of blood, missing parts, and quite, quite dead. Someone is using the Creative City as a canvas of gruesome, sadistic creativity. Someone... or something. At the end of her investigative rope, WeHo city coroner Becky O’Brien calls upon the aid of an old college friend, Christopher Driscoll, who is an expert on serial killers.

Our Cinderellas, male and female, who put up with the scruffy-ness of life while striving to make it through their various personal seaside fogs. Theater; art; antiques; old movies; sex; more sex; death; fast and slow cars, chicken shit and cow poop; military bearing and erotic emissions-not to mention the wicked witch, the sea serpent by the sea shore, the village ogre, the village idiot, and several Prince Charmings-all figure into this merry tale with a multitude of happy endings.

After being reformed for five years in the Wyoming pen, the celebrated criminal Mugs Birdsong decides to found a crime academy that will instruct lawmen on the ways of means of lawlessness. He sets up shop in an abandoned orphanage in Rock Springs, and soon is instructing classes in bank robbery, train robbery, and various other sterling occupations. He sells autographed wanted posters, and persuades a banker to let him stage a mock robbery at the bank, for the benefit of his students - and that's when the fun begins.

When the legal system has disappointed, humbled, and humiliated you, there is still one arrow in your quiver. Call the Shortcut Man. Dick Henry, the Shortcut Man, is a purveyor of unlicensed, unofficial, and unauthorized justice. In Ipso Fatso, Dick follows the breadcrumbs leading into the lofty halls of power and influence in Los Angeles. Once there, Dick achieves the unexpected, but along the way settles a variety of scores and puts a number of bad guys in touch with their inner child.

In this sequel to the hilarious science fiction novel No Small Bills, the aptly named DuckBob Spinowitz is settling into his new job as Guardian of the Matrix and his new friendship with the Man in Black he dubbed Tall. But when a gift/bribe from Tall has an unexpected effect on the dour government agent, it's up to DuckBob to figure out what's going on and save his friend - and possibly the entire human race! Again! And all without leaving his couch!

Down on the bayou, folks called the creature Zergopha. It had been around for quite a spell, slithering through the swamp, chowing down on the odd tourist here and there. Lately, though, it seemed to be after something more than a one-night snack. Affection, maybe. Possibly even...commitment. Now it's spring, and an immortal monster's bizarre fancy has turned to thoughts of weird love. Only one man is the unlucky object of Zergopha's affections.... Kent Montana.

A law-student stripper, two inept hitmen, the First Church of Elvis, Scientist, and a small-time mobster's biggest scam... Things are about to get all shook up in this hilarious novel filled with explosions, attempted murder, intrigue, and a whole lot more.

With a deft blending of wit and suspense, Ron Goulart weaves another criminous tapestry filled with action and entertainment in this sequel to his popular Even the Butler Was Poor. H. J. Mavity still wants to get rich quick; her ex-husband, Ben Spanner, still wants to keep her out of trouble; and her chief client, Lloyd Dobkin, thinks someone is trying to kill him. He's right - H.J.'s in trouble, and Ben has his hands full as Dobkin's murderer decides that the lovely artist knows the secret....

IT is big. IT is ugly. IT has a heat ray and a bad disposition. IT is, in short, the worst thing to happen to New Jersey since the last election. Nothing can stop IT. Not the army. Not the scientist. Not the preacher. Not even a cute little girl and her dog. Only one man can save us all.... Kent Montana.

H. J. Mavity, painter of paperback romance covers, has a perplexing riddle to solve when her ex-boyfriend, Rick Dell, collapses at her feet after telling her that the words "ninety-nine clop clop" hold the clue to a lot of money. Although Dell has clearly been murdered, H. J.'s avarice gets the better of her and she determines to risk the ire of whoever has killed Dell to go after the money. First, however, she must understand the riddle and who better to help her than her ex-husband, Ben Spanner, a gifted mimic whose voice is known to millions through TV and radio commercials.

DuckBob Spinowitz has a problem. It isn't the fact that he has the head of a duck - the abduction was years ago and he's learned to live with it. But now those same aliens are back, and they claim they need his help! Apparently creatures from another reality are invading the universe, and only DuckBob can reset the device that maintains the barrier between dimensions. He reluctantly agrees to help, but how can a man whose only talents are bird calls and bad jokes, and whose only work experience is punching random buttons on a computer in a standard cubicle, be expected to save the universe?

Lenny Hodge is a young man with certain abilities - special talents that even he doesn't understand. It is only when he joins Terrifitemps (the temporary employment agency that secretly controls the world) and meets his new team - a psychic, a vampire, a ghost hunter, and a werevole (yes, a werevole) - that Lenny realizes how much his special talent will put him in jeopardy. But it's worth it, right? Hasn't Lenny always wanted to save the world?