Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Last Bus to Coffeeville

Last Bus to Coffeeville

J P Henderson

Nancy Skidmore has Alzheimer’s and her oldest friend Eugene Chaney III once more a purpose in life – to end hers. When the moment for Gene to take Nancy to her desired death in Coffeeville arrives, she is unexpectedly admitted to the secure unit of a nursing home and he has to call upon his two remaining friends to help break her out…

The Hard Drug Chronicles

The Hard Drug Chronicles

Gary Phillips

From Cocaine, that most troubling and fascinating of substances; through Speed, an oft demonized and misunderstood drug and on to Heroin, long seen as the most ‘literary’ of narcotics – the contributors to this all-new original anthology reveal that those who partake are forever changed, but the price of paradise is often steep….

The Marijuana Chronicles

The Marijuana Chronicles

Jonathan Santlofer

Marijuana is the everyman drug. Teenagers surreptitiously toke on it, politicians refuse to inhale it, even your mum and dad have had a go. Marijuana is a mellow, let’s put on a Barry Manilow CD, open a bottle of vino, and order a pizza drug. It’s the easy drug. The no howling at the moon drug. No shooting up and losing your job….

The Heroin Chronicles

The Heroin Chronicles

Jerry Stahl

That most “literary” of narcotics – the enigmatic opium poppy and its various derivatives – and as these stories reveal, those who partake of the sacred flower are forever changed, but the price of paradise is often steep: overdose, hepatitis C, degradation and self-destruction….

Potshot

Potshot

Robert B Parker

Boston PI Spenser returns – heading west to the rich man’s haven of Potshot, Arizona, a former mining town reborn as a paradise for Los Angeles millionaires looking for a place to escape the pressures of their high-flying lifestyles. Potshot overcame its rough reputation as a rendezvous for old-time mountain men who lived off the land,…

Little Boy Blue

Little Boy Blue

Edward Bunker

Young Alex Hamilton is intelligent and independent but given to sudden fits of violent rage. Rebellious since his parents split up, Alex is constantly absconding from foster homes and institutions to be with his father, a broken man who can’t give his son the home he desperately needs….

The Brothers’ Lot

The Brothers’ Lot

Kevin Holohan

Combining the spirit of Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim with a bawdy evisceration of hypocrisy in old-school Catholic education, The Brothers’ Lot is a comic satire that tells the story of the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means……

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Tom Robbins

Switters is a contradiction for all seasons: an anarchist who works for the government, a pacifist who carries a gun, a vegetarian who sops up ham gravy. Yet there is nothing limp about Switters. He doesn’t merely pack a pistol. He is a pistol. As we follow Switters across four continents Robbins explores, challenges and celebrates…

Jew

Jew

D. O. Dodd

A man regains consciousness to find himself naked in a mass grave, with no idea who he is. His thought is survival, but in a religious war survival depends on knowing which side you are on….

B is For Beer

B is For Beer

Tom Robbins

Have you ever wondered why your daddy likes beer so much? Have you wondered, before you fall asleep at night, why he sometimes acts kind of “funny” after he’s been drinking beer? Maybe you’ve even wondered where beer comes from, because you’re pretty sure it isn’t from a cow. Well, Gracie Perkel wondered those same things….

Conman

Conman

Richard Asplin

Conman is the story of young Neil Martin, a kindly family man. A bit geeky, a bit nerdy. If you met him, you would assume he runs a failing comic memorabilia store in London’s Soho. Which he does. In order to bail himself out of a huge stock-ruining, poster sopping basement flood, he needs to claim on his insurance. Which he…

Villa Incognito

Villa Incognito

Tom Robbins

Imagine there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after Vietnam. Imagine there is a family in which generations of strong women have shared a connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore. Imagine just those things (don’t even try to imagine the love story) and you’ll have a foretaste of Tom Robbins’s beautifully crafted novel