Book Description

A little boy learns too late that running your mouth can get you run over. A young babysitter gets in way over her head when she's hired to sit by a dangerous man with a strange request. A young couple's hopeful visit to the city turns anything but when they step into the middle of a mob turf war and watch more than just friends die. And a young man just trying to help his hustler cousin out of a bad spot instead becomes the ultimate killer. These are only some of the eight stories comprising “Killers,” the newest arc in the ongoing world of Stray Bullets. Each story stands on its own, but collectively they tell the twisted story of two teens — Virginia and Eli — both scarred by tragic childhood intersections with the Baltimore underworld, drawn together in the sleepy seaside town of Sandcastle, unable to escape their dark pasts... About the STRAY BULLETS series: Beginning in the 1970s and carrying on into the 1990s, Stray Bullets is a period crime drama with moments of humor and absurdity. David Lapham’s crime noir masterpiece follows the lost lives of people who are savagely torn apart by events beyond their control: The innocent world of an imaginative little girl is shattered when she witnesses a brutal double murder. An introverted young boy on the verge of manhood gets a lesson on just how far is too far when he falls for a needy woman who lives life in the fast lane. Or party with a pair of low-rent hoods who learn what is really important in life just when they shouldn't. What makes Stray Bullets so brilliant is that it’s a crime comic, but it’s also about growing up, about being frustrated with your lot in life, about the disappointment of settling down, and the mundanity of suburban life. Lapham shrewdly presents almost every type of criminal behavior imaginable in stories that can be both unflinchingly honest and heartbreakingly sympathetic. The almost Altman-esque mix of characters provides seemingly endless pathos and drama, and there is a level of realism to the violence that makes it truly startling. If movies like Oceans 11 are about the sexy allure of the criminal worlds, then Stray Bullets is about the desperation and rage of characters whose lives are ultimately defined by a series of bad choices.