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HELL CITY

A striking story that will leave readers looking around the corner in fear.

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

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In this mystery, Shadow brings to life the fear of terrorism in a big city.

Jack Oldham, a soon-to-be ex-member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, scans the crowd on New Year’s Eve, weary from constant high alerts and threats that lead to nothing. During the festivities, his concerns change after a bomb scare over a bag that contains the belongings of a college student named Jessica. Jack’s worried she’s missing. Preoccupied by the bag and the missing girl, Jack searches for her throughout the city, sifting block by block through its history while trying to keep its citizens safe. The hunt turns out to be for naught: Jack tracks down Jessica’s mother and then Jessica, who is safe at home. But things don’t add up: Jessica wasn’t anywhere near the neighborhood where the bag was found on New Year’s Eve, and the photo on her ID isn’t hers. Jack realizes this isn’t about a missing person; it’s about the safety of the city he loves. The bag has something to do with a larger plot and the terrorists who, after the death of Osama bin Laden, are more ready than ever to strike another blow against America. Shadow has crafted an entertaining mystery that borrows from the best in mystery and noir, while adding a heavy dose of modern paranoia. Jack Oldham, the compelling detective, is riddled with doubts and scars, and rather than being a standard cardboard cutout, he feels vivid and believable as a protagonist. Shadow deftly evokes the constant high alert in a modern security state, as if there’s always conspiracy around the corner. His language can feel clunky at times, though, and he sometimes drops in eyebrow-raising sex metaphors, although they’re usually just spirited jolts in this thrilling lookout for the bad guys’ next move.

A striking story that will leave readers looking around the corner in fear.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-0-9859688-0-9

Page Count: 332

Publisher: Blue City Media

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012

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Endings

POETRY AND PROSE

Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.

A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.

Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.

Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.

Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2

Page Count: 120

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016

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STATES OF UNITEDNESS

POEMS

A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.

A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.

In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.

A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8

Page Count: 166

Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions

Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018

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