Submission Synopsis

Raw Meat
by Laird Long

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Length:
23 Short Stories

Genre:
Anthology
Hardboiled Crime

Author Laird Long

Sentence:
A collection of short stories rock-hard and cynical to the core; they’ll leave the reader gasping for air.

Blurb/Logline:
"Raw Meat.  Twenty-three tales of murder, betrayal, lust, greed, and violence; hammered together with lean, mean, white-hot prose painted black with a cynical humor.  Hardboiled stories of the deadly ambitions and desperate dreams that boil in all of us - just below the surface.  No quarter given - none asked."

Synopsis:
Loners, drifters, gangsters, conmen, and hardboiled P.I.’s, men and women scratching to get ahead or clawing at the walls on their way down, these are the people who fill the pages of Raw Meat.  They’re people on the make, or the take, or scrounging around for the one elusive break that’ll lift them up and out, or so they think.  They’re everyone who’s ever dreamed and despaired, been lonely or afraid, angry or desperate.  And they’re all captured, bitter and grasping and struggling, in twenty-three brutal stories of hardboiled crime and punishment.

As in Broken Hearts, where a seen-it-all detective is handed the dirty job of finding the long-dead heart of a ruthless millionaire, after it’s been ripped out of his chest; or in The Ugly Reality, where a dust bowl wife dreams sweet dreams of romance and adventure far beyond her hardscrabble existence, only to come face-to-face with the ugly reality of life on the other side of the Law; or in A Prayer for the Prey, where an anguished father with a terrible secret goes in search of his daughte, and finds her, as their hatred condemns them both.

And in Man on the Run, an angry, young woman collides head-on with a disillusioned cabbie hell-bent on his own personal retreat from oblivion, with deadly results.  While in Big Fish, a scared little kid with deformities physical and mental suddenly strikes out, unexpectedly pulling himself up and his enemies down.  And in The Jungle, violence rocks hobo enclaves in the American Midwest, when civic-minded citizens out for some blood sport clash with bloody-minded ‘bo’s out for revenge, the savage results surprising only those still clinging to tattered ideals.

From shattered lives to shattered dreams, Raw Meat shines some jagged light on the dark side of human nature, where shady deals and brutal betrayals get done, where bitter resentments and long-held grudges fester and bleed into all-consuming violence. Included in the collection, as well, is the short story Sioux City Express, a tough detective  tale listed as one of the top 50 mystery stories of 2002 in the anthology The Best American Mystery Stories - 2003.   

Bio:
Big guy, sense of humor.  Writing credits include: Blue Murder Magazine, Handheldcrime, Orchard Press Mysteries, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Plots With Guns, Hardboiled, Thriller UK, Man's Story 2, Shred of Evidence, Bullet, Eternal Night, Another Realm, The Dark Krypt, Albedo One, Here & Now, Monthly Short Stories, and stories in the anthologies Amazing Heroes, Darkways of the Wizard, F/SF, City Crimes/Country Crimes, and Crossings.

Additional:
The author's publishing credits include over two hundred short stories in the hardboiled, hardcore, and humor genres, three of which have won awards.

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