The sixth book in the Strangely Funny series. You have all heard tales of the phantom hitchhiker, but what about her parents? How do they feel after a few decades of boys showing up on their doorstep looking for their jackets? Take this journey with us and find out what club the Devil use for a short putt. Discover where werewolves retire when their muzzles turn gray.Open the pages of Strangely Funny V and join authors Eldon Litchfield, Dan Foley, Juliet Boyd, and many more, as they explore the strange happenings that could be in your neighborhood.

Emerging as the dark side of Romanticism, horror is one of literature’s oldest genres. Its history is so diverse it’s sometimes difficult to define. Are moody stories about ghosts and vampires related to gory tales of beasts and zombies? And what about the more realistic terrors of murderous rogues and diabolical doctors? The emotion of fear unifies the 14 stories in First Came Fear: New Tales of Horror. But fear is legion in its varieties. The authors skillfully navigate terror of all types. M.P. Diederich’s “Dressage for Beginners” and Christopher Calix’s “The Wedding Gift” are fine examples of the ghoulish humor tradition while J.P. Whitmer’s “Loved to Death” will frighten you in a stunningly visceral way. Oliver Ledesma’s “Atabey” and Samantha Pilecki’s “Roser and the Guide to the Inexplicable” impart fear through non-traditional storytelling and Sarah K. Stephens’ “The Factory” shows how effectively, and chillingly, horror can tackle social issues. All the stories are accompanied by Luke Spooner’s dramatic art, which combines Gothic macabre with echoes of classic horror illustration. The entire collection will have you gripping the edge of your seat or biting your fingernails, yet leave you longing for more!

It's Saturday, and Nashville lowlife Jake Croom needs money for the beer joints. (Hey! It isn't like he just wants the money!) But his seemingly straightforward plan to steal some sends him ricocheting through the lives of everyone from bat-wielding grandmothers to down-and-out typesetters to inadvertent Robert E. Lee impersonators, violently knocking them all into various unexpected pockets in life's pool table. Meanwhile Jake, fortified by tequila, unidentified pharmaceuticals and a thirty-five-dollar pistol, caroms toward his own final collision with a counterfeit Valkyrie and a bona fide hail of bullets.

David Burkitt is a man of Faith. Not throw-away-your-pills Faith or annoy-people-on-streetcorners Faith. His is a quiet Faith. The kind of faith that lets a person pronounce "Job" the way it is pronounced in the Bible without ever wondering why, if God wanted it pronounced that way, he didn't put an "e" on the end. But David's calm, stable world is shattered when his angelic, loving wife, Glenda, vanishes. She's left him, suddenly and for no apparent reason! Then things get weird as more and more people seem to know more about David's wife than David does, including--shockingly--the crude, bigoted, possibly psychopathic redneck, Rolly Blaney. Soon David, Blaney and a cast of crackpots are ricocheting through the Tennessee night in hot pursuit of Glenda, with David doing some very un-Davidlike things along the way. By the time it's over, David will have broken a couple of commandments, experienced his first hangover, and will find himself at the Rally to Keep Tennessee Safe for Christianity covered with blood and waving a pistol. And nobody is more surprised by it all than David Burkitt.

At the cutting edge of crime fiction, Mystery Weekly Magazine presents original short stories by the world's best-known and emerging mystery writers. The stories we feature in our monthly issues span every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries. Evocative writing and a compelling story are the only certainty. Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and entertained--whether you enjoy the style of the Golden Age of mystery (e.g., Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle), the glorious pulp digests of the early twentieth century (e.g., Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), or contemporary masters of mystery. In this issue: "Fast Forward" by William Burton Mccormick: Mr. Gothe has rival split personalities. The first, "Jimmy" is a nondescript event planner. The second, "James" is a genius detective. Jimmy hates James. James loathes Jimmy. But which persona will solve the mystery of the murdered art thief? "A Siege Of Herons" by Christie Cochrell: A well-known Mallorcan artist with a remote family tie to Cezanne goes missing, and Inspector Tomás Vilalta traces her to the Medieval walled town of Alcúdia. "Murderer Bill" by John Grant: When Denny was small, his mom told him about Murderer Bill, the man who seeks out kids who've been bad. Now he's grown up, Denny sometimes wants to be bad, but the thought of Murderer Bill keeps him in check. Then Tabitha walks into his life ... "The Beresford Case" by Ken Teutsch: A psychic detective who is not as he seems, a damsel in distress who is not as she seems and an English manor which is not as it seems. "When The Circus Almost Came To Town" by John H. Dromey: It's no laughing matter when a boomtown is overrun by clowns. Or is it? "Murder In The Workplace" by Bruce Harris: An office supply company security director investigates the murder of a sales manager. Four salespeople had motive and opportunity.