"Few poker players can write and even fewer can play poker. Jesse May is a rare master of both infernal arts" Anthony Holden, author of Big Deal
"A marvellous read, easily the best narrative I have ever read on poker. Through his characters, their language, astonishingly insightful and engrossing anecdotes, Jesse May has opened a window for the outside world to see, through a sunglass clearly, into the incredibly exciting, gut-wrenching, roller-coaster ride of the 'silver platter life on wheels' world of the modern professional poker player" Mickey Finn, European No Limit Hold'em champion
"This book is quick and tough and stinks of the poker room, the casino, the hotel room, the lights that buzz all the time when you're trying to recover the two grand you lost last night. It's a gambler's book. Reading it is being there." Frederick Barthelme, author of Bob the Gambler

Lew Griffin's fifth outing begins suspiciously like his third - Black Hornet : as Lew exits a music club with an older white woman he's just met, a sniper fires. This time it is not the woman who is hit, but Lew, and coming fully to himself, he realises that most of a year is gone. The novel we are reading is Lew's attempt to reconstruct that year: from the fragments he does remember, from the reports of friends, and, ultimately, from his imagination. Because Lew is a detective and a writer of detective stories - and because he is looking for a missing person: himself - the book takes the form of a mystery. But calling Bluebottle a mystery would be like calling Huckleberry Finn, a young adult novel.
This novel speaks to the most important questions: the nature of identity, the problem of evil, how we are to live and counter the self destructive nature of ourselves and our history.
Sallis is an original, one of the finest writers working today.

"Speaking of James Sallis in the same tone as Poe and Dostoevski is not overblowing on my part. His early work indicates a mind and a talent of uncommon dimensions. He may well be one of the significant ones" - Harlan Ellison - "Better than lames Lee Burke and Waiter Mosley" Crime Time

"well-nigh perfect of its kind" Kirkus Reviews
"a witty, gritty heroine" New York Post
"She has an extraordinary ear for how people talk. I'm always jealous of the way she can create the sense of a person ... with a few lines of dialogue" Sara Paretsky

Woodrell is a marvellous writer - Roddy Doyle

Jewel Cobb had come to St Bruno to climb on the fabled big city gravy train. As he tucked his .32 Beretta into the waistband of his trousers, he sensed he was about to turn his midnight fantasies into rich reality. Cousin Duncan had set little Jewel up to do the killing. The boy was hillbilly raw but country tough.. and too dumb to get in Duncan's way after the victim was dead.
It seemed simple enough.. a burglar caught in the act.. bullets fired in panic.. too bad the dead man was a prominent black councilman with big political ambitions but that's life. Find the burglar and you find the killer.. simple as that.
But for detective Rene Shade it seemed a bit too simple.. a bit too pat so he takes on City Hall as he follows a twisting trail through the sleazy streets of St Bruno's Cajun quarter, down the back alley black ghettos into the murky bayous that ring the city. It's a trail that leads to corruption, betrayal and more murder.

...praise for Daniel Woodrell's last novel, Give Us A Kiss
"Woodrell alternates between reaming the language with a dry corncob and practising a particularly skilful kind of literary cabinetwork. Tongue in cheek (and most other orifices) he celebrates blood kin, home country and hot sex in this rich, funky, headshakingly original novel." - E Annie Proulx
"Every now and again a novel jumps head and shoulders above the crowd. Nine times out of ten it's because the writer's voice is so different that it demands attention. Daniel Woodrell's exotic and evocative Give Us A Kiss is a perfect example...Rich, raunchy and riotously readable, Daniel Woodrell is one of the most exciting writers I've discovered in a long time." Val McDermid in the Manchester Evening News
"Dan Woodrell can tell me stories any time. He can come to my house, pull up a chair on the porch, pour himself a long drink or whatever it is he's fond of, scratch my dog between the ears and let fly. I don't know that I'II let him around my wife and daughter, though, unless he's closely supervised." - Pinckney Benedict

Woodrell is a marvellous writer Roddy Doyle

In small Ozark towns like West Table, Missouri, what you are is where you're born and in Venus Holler what you are isn't much. For Bev Merridew who can turn a trick as easily as roll a joint, life in Venus Holler is tolerable. For her 19 year old and angry daughter, a life like Bev's isn't good enough. Jamalee Merridew with her tomato red hair and her barely suppressed rage has plans and they don't include Venus Holler or especially Bev. In fact they depend on her drop dead beautiful brother, Jason, the object of adoring libidinous attention from every West Table female. Jamalee thinks he's her ticket out. But Jason may just be the country queer and in the hills and hollows of the Ozarks that is about the most dangerous and also the most courageous thing a man could be. Into their midst comes Sammy Barlach, a man with too many file numbers on his record who's is passing through West Table on the way to nowhere, looking to be a loser some place else. Jamalee thinks he might just be the muscle she and Jason need. But Sammy is better at botched burglaries than security and when Jason turns up dead and the cops call it an accident even Bev is roused from her easy going acceptance of the system. Pooling their talents the misfit threesome set out to expose the solid citizens who thought it was no harm, no foul to kill a country queer...

Praise for Give Us A Kiss
"Woodrell alternates between reaming the language with a dry corncob and practising a particularly skilful kind of literary cabinetwork. Tongue in cheek (and most other orifices) he celebrates blood kin, home country and hot sex in this rich, funky, headshakingly original novel" E Annie Proulx
"Dan Woodrell can tell me stories any time. He can come to my house, pull up a chair on the porch, pour himself a long drink or whatever it is he's fond of, scratch my dog between the ears and let fly. I don't know that I'II let him around my wife and daughter, though, unless he's closely supervised." Pinckney Benedict