Jon Bassoff

Beneath Cruel Waters

A wrenching psychological thriller in the vein of Tana French's In the Woods, Jon Bassoff's Beneath Cruel Waters reminds us that the sins of the mothers are the sins of the sons. Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn't been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood. Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter? And what role did his sister, institutionalized since she was a teenager, play in this act of violence? As his own traumatic memories begin to resurface, Holt begins an investigation into his mother's and sister's pasts--as well as his own.

Beneath Cruel Waters (Large Print)

Shortly after her brother is convicted of the brutal murder Lizzy Greiner is found dead. Next to her charred body, investigators find her journal, safely stored inside a fireproof box. Her narrative calls into question everything investigators thought they knew about the murder. THE LANTERN MAN by Jon Bassoff.

The Lantern Man

Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn’t been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood. Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter? And what role did his sister, institutionalized since she was a teenager, play in this act of violence? As his own traumatic memories begin to resurface, Holt begins an investigation into his mother’s and sister’s pasts—as well as his own. A wrenching psychological thriller in the vein of Tana French’s In the Woods, Jon Bassoff’s Beneath Cruel Waters reminds us that the sins of the mothers are the sins of the sons.

Shortly after her brother, Stormy, is convicted of the brutal murder of a classmate, seventeen-year-old Lizzy Greiner is found dead in an abandoned mountain shack, the result of an apparent suicide by fire. Next to Lizzy’s charred body, investigators find several of her journals, safely stored inside a fireproof box. It soon becomes evident that these journals contain a narrative that Lizzy wanted the police to read, the truth that she wanted them to know. Detective Russ Buchanan is tasked with determining the veracity of her narrative, including Lizzy’s belief and obsession that the mysterious and murderous Lantern Man is haunting the mountains near her family’s house. He interviews family members, teachers, and classmates; he studies her psychologist’s extensive case notes. And he learns that Lizzy isn’t the only one who believes in the Lantern Man. After generations of ghost stories, is it possible that the Lantern Man actually does exist, a real-life boogeyman? Did he have something to do with the murder? Or is he simply a figment of Lizzie’s deluded imagination, an attempt to rationalize her brother’s brutality? The further into the investigation he delves, the more Buchanan questions everything he thought he knew about Lizzy’s death and the murder for which her brother was convicted. Eschewing a conventional narrative, The Lantern Man is told through newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, artwork, police interviews and notes, and, most importantly, a dead girl’s journal. While bearing similarities to House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Night Film by Marish Pessl, and The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The Lantern Man stands alone in the genre of contemporary mystery/suspense. It is at once a mystery, a family drama, and a ghost story, the type of novel that is sure to keep you flipping pages deep into the night. Praise for THE LANTERN MAN: “The Lantern Man is an extraordinary novel that defies categorization. With shades of Stephen King, Silence of the Lambs, journalism, and author Jon Bassoff’s own groundbreaking vision of how to use the printed page to give readers the best story possible, The Lantern Man is a landmark novel that will make you wonder, marvel, and remember.” —James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor “The Lantern Man is disorienting in the best sense of the word. Jon Bassoff masterfully blurs the lines between genres—no, scratch that, among genres—by creating a hellish hall of competing mirrors, each holding its own twisted version of the truth. The Lantern Man is a true shape-shifter of a novel. It’s one that will remain with readers long after the last page.” —Lynn Kostoff, author of A Choice of Nightmares and Words to Die For “An engaging and immersive mashup of mystery and horror, Jon Bassoff’s The Lantern Man offers a dizzying world of clues interlacing the disappearances of several girls with the mythology of a local boogeyman. Bassoff weaves a tight and creepy tale through a series of mediums: a girl’s diary, police transcripts, a detective’s notes, newspaper articles, letters, photos, and sketches. The result is an exceptionally creative, compelling, and dark whodunit that will leave its readers, like the Lantern Man himself, hungry for more.” —Carter Wilson, USA Today bestselling author “The Lantern Man is a brilliant—and terrifying—puzzle-box narrative that dares you to keep reading. It's the kind of book that you better cancel any plans you might have before you start.” —Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse “Ever been eyebrows deep in a horrifying investigation? You’re about to be... Part memoir, part case file and completely absorbing, The Lantern Man is a compelling pastiche on the verge of madness.” —Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire mysteries, the basis for the Netflix drama Longmire “A genre-bending novel—an original, captivating mystery that might pave the way we write crime fiction forever.” —Jax Miller, author of Freedom’s Child

The year is 1953. Disgraced in the psychiatric hospital where he¿d practiced for nearly thirty years, Dr. Walter Freeman has taken to traversing the country and proselyting about a very new kind of salvation: the transorbitol lobotomy. With an ice pick and a hammer, Freeman promises to cure depression and catatonia, delusions and psychosis, with a procedure as simple and safe as curing a toothache. When he enters the backwater Oklahoma town of Burnwood, however, his own sanity will be tested. Around him swirls a degenerate and delusional cast of characters¿a preacher who believes his son to be the Messiah, a demented and violent young prostitute, and a trio of machete-wielding brothers¿all weaved into a grotesque narrative that reveals how blind faith in anything can lead to destruction.

The Incurables

From critically acclaimed author Jon Bassoff, The Memory Ward is a haunting Russian doll of a novel about one man’s attempt to discover what’s real and what isn’t ... They say it’s always beautiful in Bethlam, Nevada. No place you’d rather live. The people are friendly, if a little nosy, and there’s no crime to speak of. Life is pretty perfect. But postal worker Hank Davies has started to suspect something is off in this idyllic little town. And he’s certain of that when he realizes the letters he’s been delivering are just blank pages. Hank isn’t the only one who’s noticed the oddities in Bethlam. One such person knocks on his window in the middle of the night, urging him to investigate his bedroom wall. When Hank pulls back the wallpaper, he discovers dozens of sheets of paper, full of a story that is either complete madness or unbelievable truth. As he begins looking beyond the veneer of his smiling neighbors and their white picket fences, Hank is drawn further and further into a disturbing new reality ... Told in Bassoff’s lyrical and evocative style, The Memory Ward is a disquieting page-turner that examines the nature of identity, trauma, and what it means to be human.

The Memory Ward

Russell Carver, an enigmatic and tortured man in search of a young girl gone missing, has come to Factory Town, a post-industrial wasteland of abandoned buildings, crumbling asphalt, deadly characters, hidden secrets and unspeakable depravity. Wandering deeper and deeper into the dangerous, dream-like and darkly mysterious labyrinths in town, Russell stumbles upon clues that not only lead him closer to the missing girl, but to his own troubled past as well. Because in Factory Town nothing is what it seems, no one is safe, and there's no such thing as a clean escape. From Jon Bassoff, author of Corrosion, comes a dark, gritty and surreal novel that is at once a compelling mystery and an exploration into the darkest recesses of the human soul. Welcome to the haunting, frightening, and disturbing experience that is Russell Carver's search for the truth... Praise for FACTORY TOWN: "This is a profoundly discomfiting and pessimistic exploration of a deeply damaged man, and when Bassoff (Corrosion) invokes real-world horrors alongside the fantastical ugliness of Factory Town and its inhabitants, he suggests that similar foulness is common to all people. This is one to read with all the lights on." -Publishers Weekly "Factory Town: A hallucinatory descent into an urban hell that rivals Jim Thompson for stark terror. Jon Bassoff is a master of that territory where pulp becomes poetry, crime fiction mates with horror, but this novel is very much its own self-an unnervingly individual piece of work." -Ramsey Campbell, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Ancient Images "Factory Town is a journeyman's surreal voyage through the very heart of hell. A novel full of a crazed, ugly, vivid, disturbing energy held together by a deft hand. Bassoff is the king of creepy crime-horror fiction." -Tom Piccirilli, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Last Kind Words "For those of us who love the horror-crime genre, Jon Bassoff is a Godsend. Creepy, poetic, and beautifully dark, Factory Town is an absolutely mesmerizing ride." -John Rector, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Already Gone, Lost Things, and Out of the Black "In Factory Town, Jon Bassoff gives us Russell Carver, a man whose desperate search for a missing girl takes him to a bleak city where hope has long since been abandoned, and the grotesque is accepted as normal. By turns brutal and lyrical, shocking and uplifting, Factory Town provides a visceral experience unlike any other novel you'll read this year. Jon Bassoff is quickly becoming a must-read author in the field of dark fiction. Don't miss this worthy follow-up to last year's must-read Corrosion." -Allan Leverone, author of Final Vector and Mr. Midnight "No crime writer today does bleakness and despair as well as Jon Bassoff. He has the voice of a modern day David Goodis, if Goodis had been influenced by Stephen King. Factory Town is a thrilling genre bending mystery that is as scary as it gets." -Jason Starr, international bestselling author of The Craving and The Returning "Factory Town is the novel Kafka would have written had he lived longer. Brilliant writing, this, in the vein of Jung's shadow world. Jon Bassoff's novel is the contemporary Pilgrim's Progress; Russell Carver, the Christian of John Bunyan's work, traveling through the Slough of Despond looking for a salvation that will never come. And, then-there are lines that make you weep at their truth and beauty, like: 'She had once been beautiful, so beautiful that I almost believed in God, but beauty falls apart, just like everything, rusts and rots, disintegrates and deteriorates.' This is nihilism in its final, apocalyptic, terrible form." -Les Edgerton, author of The Rapist, The Bitch and The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Ki

Factory Town

Les Edgerton

Seventeen stories of hard-bitten souls hurtling over asphalt, the desert, the sea, and even through space itself in adventures fueled by vengeance, betrayal, madness, and murder.

High-Octane, High-Velocity Action

Blood and Gasoline

The year is 1953. Disgraced in the psychiatric hospital where he’d practiced for nearly thirty years, Dr. Walter Freeman has taken to traversing the country and proselyting about a very new kind of salvation: the transorbital lobotomy. With an ice pick and a hammer, Freeman promises to cure depression and catatonia, delusions and psychosis, with a procedure as simple and safe as curing a toothache. When he enters the backwater Oklahoma town of Burnwood, however, his own sanity will be tested. Around him swirls a degenerate and delusional cast of characters—a preacher who believes his son to be the Messiah, a demented and violent young prostitute, and a trio of machete-wielding brothers—all weaved into a grotesque narrative that reveals how blind faith in anything can lead to destruction. Praise for THE INCURABLES: “A twisted tour through the asylum that Jon Bassoff calls his mind. The Incurables is filled with the mad and desperate, but ultimately it’s the humanity that Bassoff finds in his broken characters that sets this novel apart. Don’t get me wrong though, The Incurables is certifiably insane—and I mean that in the best possible way.” —Johnny Shaw, Anthony Award-winning author of Big Maria “Jon Bassoff’s The Incurables practically bleeds off the page with a dark poetry so intense, that you can still feel it after your eyes are closed. It’s the rarest type of novel that won’t only sink its teeth into you, it will leave you relishing the scar.” —Todd Robinson, author of The Hard Bounce “With influences and homage as wide and varied as The Alcoholics, Cuckoo’s Nest, and ‘Murder in the Red Barn,’ The Incurables oddly and most affectionately invokes Nick Cave—but not Cave the singer, Cave the novelist—with its backwoods preachers, hellbent harlots, and dead-eyed dreamers. Think And the Ass Saw the Angel, only superiorly written, carved by prose that cuts deep. Bassoff’s crooked trip to hell is a powerful rumination on the beauty of the damned.” —Joe Clifford, author of Junkie Love and Lamentation “The Incurables reads like an unhinged murder ballad. In it, Bassoff’s crafted a violent—and oddly affecting—ode to the outcasts, the downtrodden, the broken, the grotesque, and the misunderstood.” —Chris Holm, author of The Big Reap “The Incurables is terse, sparse and brutal, yet strangely touching at times. Another winner from the Bassoff pen.” —William Meikle, author of The Hole “Imagine One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as re-written by Elmore Leonard. A mesmerizing novel.” —Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of The Guards

A mysterious Iraq war veteran with a horribly scarred face...A disturbed young man in a strange mountain town...A masked preacher with a terrible secret...Amidst a firestorm of violence, betrayal and horror, their three worlds will eventually collide in an old mining shack buried deep in the mountains. Corrosion, the shattering debut novel by Jon Bassoff, is equal parts Jim Thompson, Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, and an unforgettable journey into the underbelly of crime and passion. Drawn from the darkest corners of the human experience, it is sure to haunt readers for years to come. Praise for CORROSION: "Bassoff confronts directly the traumatic stress disorder of our world today and tears off its mask, even if the face must follow." -New York Magazine "Corrosion is a beautifully bleak noir novel that stretches the boundaries of the genre to its breaking point. A virtuoso performance by the terrific Jon Bassoff." -Jason Starr, international bestselling author of The Craving "Like some unholy spawn of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God and Donald Ray Pollock's The Devil All the Time, Corrosion offers pungent writing, a cast of irresistibly damaged characters, and a narrative that's as twisted and audacious as any I have read in a long while. A dark gem." -Roger Smith, author of Dust Devils "Sharp, original, fierce, a real gut-ripper. Corrosion is one of the most startlingly original and unsettling novels I've read in ages. It ramps your pulse, it claws at your sweet spot. Bassoff has a career ahead of him brightly lit by a very bad star." -Tom Piccirilli, author of the Edgar Award-nominated novel The Cold Spot "Imagine Chuck Palahniuk filtered through Tarantino speak, blended with an acidic Jim Thompson and a book that cries out to be filmed by David Lynch, then you have a flavor of Corrosion. The debut novel from the unique Jon Bassoff begins a whole new genre: Corrosive Noir." -Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of The Guards "Jon Bassoff gives new meaning to the phrase 'Hell on earth' in his debut novel, Corrosion. It's a harrowing page-turning tale of lost, misplaced, and mangled identity that barrels its way to breakdowns and showdowns of literal and figurative biblical proportions." -Lynn Kostoff, author of Late Rain "Jon Bassoff's stream of conscious novel sports Faulkner-like as this dark tale is told in first person timelines. It will grip and engage and ultimately leave you shaken to the core. Not for the tenderhearted... not no way, not no how. Corrosion is the tale of a man on a mission from God... or is it the Devil? Dare to find out." -Charlie Stella, author of Johnny Porno "Talk about a book starting one way and then springing something on you... Bassoff's Corrosion] is dark and funny and sick, a book as much about identity as it is about crime." -Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series "Corrosion is a fever dream, a lucid nightmare. It is at once poetic and brutal; hypnotic and vicious; empathetic and heartless. It is the most effective kind of horror-the kind you believe. Reading it is a deeply uncomfortable experience in the best possible way." -Marcus Sakey, author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes "An archetypal, nightmare journey down a hall of mirrors. Corrosion will burn your eyeballs. Keeps you reading relentlessly to the end." -Jonathan Woods, author of A Death in Mexico

Corrosion

Russell Carver, ein rätselhafter und gebrochener Mann auf der Suche nach einem verschwundenen jungen Mädchen, ist nach Factory Town gekommen, einem postindustriellen Ödland aus verlassenen Gebäuden, zerbröckelndem Asphalt, tödlichen Charakteren, verborgenen Geheimnissen und unaussprechlicher Ver- derbtheit. Russell wandert immer tiefer in die gefährlichen, traumhaften und dunkel mysteriösen Labyrinthe der Stadt und stößt auf Hinweise, die ihn nicht nur dem vermissten Mädchen, sondern auch seiner eigenen unruhigen Vergangenheit näher bringen. Denn in Factory Town ist nichts so, wie es scheint, niemand ist sicher und es gibt keine saubere Flucht. Alles an dieser Stadt war seltsam; nichts ergab einen Sinn.

Kriminalroman

A mysterious Iraq war veteran with a horribly scarred face…A disturbed young man in a strange mountain town…A masked preacher with a terrible secret…Amidst a firestorm of violence, betrayal and horror, their three worlds will eventually collide in an old mining shack buried deep in the mountains. Corrosion, the shattering debut novel by Jon Bassoff, is equal parts Jim Thompson, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, and an unforgettable journey into the underbelly of crime and passion. Drawn from the darkest corners of the human experience, it is sure to haunt readers for years to come. Praise for CORROSION: “Bassoff confronts directly the traumatic stress disorder of our world today and tears off its mask, even if the face must follow.” —New York Magazine “Corrosion is a beautifully bleak noir novel that stretches the boundaries of the genre to its breaking point. A virtuoso performance by the terrific Jon Bassoff.” —Jason Starr, international bestselling author of The Craving “Like some unholy spawn of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and Donald Ray Pollock’s The Devil All the Time, Corrosion offers pungent writing, a cast of irresistibly damaged characters, and a narrative that’s as twisted and audacious as any I have read in a long while. A dark gem.” —Roger Smith, author of Dust Devils “Sharp, original, fierce, a real gut-ripper. Corrosion is one of the most startlingly original and unsettling novels I’ve read in ages. It ramps your pulse, it claws at your sweet spot. Bassoff has a career ahead of him brightly lit by a very bad star.” —Tom Piccirilli, author of the Edgar Award-nominated novel The Cold Spot “Imagine Chuck Palahniuk filtered through Tarantino speak, blended with an acidic Jim Thompson and a book that cries out to be filmed by David Lynch, then you have a flavor of Corrosion. The debut novel from the unique Jon Bassoff begins a whole new genre: Corrosive Noir.” —Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of The Guards “Jon Bassoff gives new meaning to the phrase ‘Hell on earth’ in his debut novel, Corrosion. It’s a harrowing page-turning tale of lost, misplaced, and mangled identity that barrels its way to breakdowns and showdowns of literal and figurative biblical proportions.” —Lynn Kostoff, author of Late Rain “Jon Bassoff’s stream of conscious novel sports Faulkner-like as this dark tale is told in first person timelines. It will grip and engage and ultimately leave you shaken to the core. Not for the tenderhearted… not no way, not no how. Corrosion is the tale of a man on a mission from God… or is it the Devil? Dare to find out.” —Charlie Stella, author of Johnny Porno “Talk about a book starting one way and then springing something on you…[Bassoff’s Corrosion] is dark and funny and sick, a book as much about identity as it is about crime.” —Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series “Corrosion is a fever dream, a lucid nightmare. It is at once poetic and brutal; hypnotic and vicious; empathetic and heartless. It is the most effective kind of horror—the kind you believe. Reading it is a deeply uncomfortable experience in the best possible way.” —Marcus Sakey, author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes “An archetypal, nightmare journey down a hall of mirrors. Corrosion will burn your eyeballs. Keeps you reading relentlessly to the end.” —Jonathan Woods, author of A Death in Mexico

Jon Bassoff

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