The games men play : short stories and vignettes

Twenty-one short stories make up this collection, which moves from the grimy streets of St. Louis out to the quiet, rural counties on the city's edges. The tales are dark and unsettling, following ordinary people and small-time wrongdoers whose choices lead them into trouble. Written in a brisk, economical style, the stories keep the pace high and the sentences lean, so that each one arrives quickly at its point. Set in the Gateway City and its surroundings, the book offers a portrait of a region rarely seen in crime fiction. Readers who enjoy hard-boiled writing, unvarnished settings and endings that linger will find much here to hold their attention.