To celebrate the launch of our new anthology, Howls from the Scene of the Crime: An Anthology of Crime Horror, the two co-editors, Timaeus Bloom and Jessica Peter have put together a list of other books that blend CRIME and HORROR.
Howls from the Scene of the Crime releases May 14, but our Kickstarter starts March 5! Be first on the list to find out more here (first 50 backers will be entered into a prize package from our authors, so get in early!) While you wait, we’d love to recommend six other crime horror books.
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.
Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.
Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys. (StoryGraph)
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While technically in the crime genre, the knife-turning violence and gritty darkness of this revenge plot flavors it with horror. With a page-turning plot, beautiful sentences, and complex, flawed characters, this is an excellent read.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Into the Forest and All the Way Through by Cynthia Pelayo
Nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection, Into the Forest and all the Way Through is a collection of true crime poetry that explores the cases of over one hundred missing and murdered women in the United States. (StoryGraph)
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A poetry collection is a bit of a departure from a usual HOWLS read, but this collection where each poem corresponds with a true case of a missing and murdered woman is brutal and beautiful true crime: horror that speaks truth to power.
StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
A genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what’s left of his family, even if it means a descent into violence–both supernatural and of our own terrifying world.
Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same. (StoryGraph)
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Grimy and brutal, with a real beauty in the language and visuals. “Barrio noir” is a great way to describe it as a genre: a supernatural daytime noir, set in the hot sun of Texas and Mexico that can’t hide the grime.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
The stories “The Finkelstein 5” and “Zimmer Land” in Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
From the start of this extraordinary debut, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that Black men and women contend with every day in this country.
These stories explore urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and the ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. (StoryGraph)
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A stunning collection that pulls no punches in featuring both the everyday horrors that black people face by simply existing as well as social commentary on the past, present, and future. These two stories in particular feature such a range of topics as code switching, tokenism, police brutality, and the failures of the justice system. Unskippable, imaginative, visceral, and painful.
Bookshop* | StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
We Are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe
With these twelve stories Paula D. Ashe takes you into a dark and bloody world where nothing is sacred and no one is safe. A landscape of urban decay and human degradation, this collection finds the psychic pressure points of us all, and giddily squeezes. Try to run, try to hide, but there is no escape: we are here to hurt each other. (StoryGraph)
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Horror is often at its most impactful in the short form. From the very first story, the reader is quickly made aware that this won’t be an easy read. Creative and addictive, the poetic nature of Ashe’s prose shines in this collection of cosmic horror, police procedurals, and the complexities of familial love.
StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
Bonus: Cranberry Cove by Hailey Piper
A supernatural crime novella. What’s been happening at Cranberry Cove? It’s unspeakable. It’s unspoken. Emberly Hale is about to take a dark journey inside the derelict hotel—and inside her own past—to find out the horrible truth. (Goodreads)
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This book doesn’t come out until April 2, but we’re excited to check it out! Piper describes it as her bleakest book so far, and jumping the line between crime and horror. We’re sold!
StoryGraph | Goodreads | Amazon
And soon to join the line-up…
The Howls from the Scene of the Crime Kickstarter launches on March 5! Visit our launch page now to get notified on launch. Notifications come even faster when you hang out with us, so be sure to join us on Discord!
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