ALL WHITE GIRLS

Wildside Press, 2001

One young woman is missing. Another is dead.

 

They were drawn to Windy City like moths to a flame, but the city’s bright lights can’t illuminate every dark corner. Hidden in the alleys and back streets and in a three-block-long stretch of strip clubs and adult bookstores are the men who prey on young women like these: the pedophiles, pimps, and pornographers.

 

When former partners, unlicensed investigator Big Dick Rickenbacher and Homicide Lieutenant Salvador Castellano, find their cases overlapping in this violent world of sexual depravity, old flames rekindle, old secrets finally surface, and old crimes demand retribution.

“...violent surprises...fast-paced and very hard-boiled.” A 4-Star Review—Detroit Free Press

 

All White Girls is a one-sitting, in-your-face, hard-boiled mystery; and it’s damn good.”—I Love A Mystery

 

“...a gritty novel where almost everyone has an interest in the dark side of human nature.”—Blue Iris Journal

 

“...a driving pace that keeps the reader engaged from cover to cover.”—Judas

 

“Michael Bracken’s latest effort moves like lightning. Short, quick-cut scenes with virtually no padding give All White Girls a relentless pace that slows only in the last few paragraphs....this is one of the best pieces of hard-boiled fiction I’ve read in a long time. It’s lean, it’s short, and it left me feeling like I’d been dumped in an alley behind one of the strip clubs in the story. All White Girls is a sorely needed reinvention of the tired serial killer tale.”—Plots With Guns!

 

“Bracken’s descriptions and dialog are sharp, crisp and biting.”—Murder Express

 

Bronze ADDY Award

Covers—Books or Videos

Awarded to Michael Bracken,

Michelangelo Flores, and Alan Rodgers

For the book’s cover

BAD GIRLS

Wildside Press, 2000

When a French secret service operative is murdered on a lonely Alpine highway, a womanizing CIA agent must find the killer and terminate “With Extreme Prejudice.”

 

Back in the states, the same agent discovers “The Only Good Red.”

 

Three years after a bank robbery goes bad, a convict on the verge of parole learns that his partner’s wife really knows how to set up a “Con Job.”

 

When an attractive young woman borrows money for a new car, it’s the loan manager who learns never to trust the “First Blonde on the Left.”

 

After an account executive visits a fortune teller, he discovers there’s “A Price to Pay.”

 

A dead man dressed like a woman and the cop leading the investigation aren’t what they seem until you peel away the “Husks.”

 

When two ex-cons try to return an unwanted engagement ring, they find themselves stuck between the “Rock and a Hard Place.”

 

A husband, a wife, and a hired killer soon learn that “Three’s A Shroud.”

 

A disgraced jockey and his girlfriend take matters into their own hands and there’s “Vengeance to Show in the Third.”

 

An ex-con can’t believe his luck when a naked socialite seduces him. He soon learns not to throw his stones at “Glass Houses.”

 

They do bad things. For love. For money. For fun. They’re Bad Girls.

“Michael Bracken’s mysteries are filled with danger, adventure, and death. His characters are often unpredictable; so are his endings. In Bad Girls, his...stories were laced with intelligent, contemporary women who knew just how to manipulate the male protagonists. Motivations surprised me time and again.

 

“Bracken’s style is unique. His stories are taut. No details are wasted. He knows just what to reveal and what to withhold.”—EWG Presents

 

“A better collection from the author, these dozen have more variety, from spies to cops to crooks, most with an erotic component.”—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

Tales of Natural and Supernatural Noir.

 

Whether real or imagined, natural or supernatural, the horrors in these macabre tales of lost love, quiet desperation, and painful memories will linger in your thoughts long after you’ve turned the last page. These are dark, dark tales.

 

 

“Michael Bracken’s stories can creep up on you like a cool breeze, or hit you over the head like a hammer. But whether he’s subtle or wild, he’s always in control of his considerable talent. With Canvas Bleeding, first-time Bracken readers are in for a real treat.”—Edo van Belkom, author of Martyrs and Scream Queen

 

“The stories tend to be short and direct and most rely on a surprise ending, many of them quite effective.”—Don D'Ammassa

CANVAS BLEEDING

Wildside Press, 2002

Covering City Hall during an election year was all the excitement reporter Dan Fox needed—until he discovered Alderman Bill Franklin’s bullet-ridden body.

 

Who killed the alderman? Why did they do it? Fox wants the story. Everyone else wants him.

 

Hit men, mob bosses, politicians, and mistresses: They all have stories to tell, and Fox pieces them together while dodging bullets and fighting deadlines.

 

While Fox digs for the story, long-hidden secrets rise to the surface—secrets that threaten the political fabric of the city—and Fox soon discovers he’s caught in the middle of a Deadly Campaign.

“...exciting...plenty of action...a pleasure to read.”—Blue Iris Journal

 

Silver ADDY Award

Covers—Books or Videos

Awarded to Michael Bracken,

Michelangelo Flores, and Alan Rodgers

For the book’s cover

DEADLY CAMPAIGN

Wildside Press, 2000

 

Books in Motion, 1994

AudioBook

Read by Jack Labbe

“An intriguing group of electrifying short stories” including five stories featuring Private Eye Nathaniel Rose and two other mystery/suspense tales.

EVEN ROSES BLEED

Books In Motion, 1995

AudioBook

Read by Maynard Villars

When young cop Mike Morelli offers Patrick Bates a lift in his car, he is anticipating a regular shift. Bates, one of the few surviving members of the Baker High School class of 1974, has other ideas.

 

John Passetti watches his dead brother emerge from his ocean grave, an old woman dies after reporting a graveyard desecration, and the town drunk is seeing ghosts. Hardly a regular shift. But will the students of ’74 attend Bates’ reunion?

“A truly terrifying tale in the Stephen King tradition. Michael Bracken is a horror writer to watch out for.”—Writers Block

 

“Nicely understated and atmospheric....”—Science Fiction Chronicle

IN THE TOWN OF DREAMS UNBORN AND MEMORIES DYING

Barley Books, 2000

His father writes confessions and jokes, and the biggest joke of all is his name—Justin Tyme. But Jay, as he prefers to be called, hasn’t had much to laugh about in the years since his mother died. His father retreats into an alcohol-hazed world of denial and self-pity, reversing their care-giver roles, and forcing Jay to grow up virtually on his own.

 

Then, they move to O’Shea, where his father manages a mobile home park, and Jay begins yet another year as the “new kid” in school. He has a lot to learn—about life, his father, and himself, but most of all, about love. And it all begins the day Jay meets Cindy Hamilton.

“Michael Bracken captures his audience from the beginning with a heartfelt and humorous tale.”—Affair De Coeur

 

“A warmhearted tale a young adult can relate to.”—Romance Connections

 

“Highly recommended.”—Under the Cover Book Reviews

 

Selected as a “Book To Live By”—Dubai Scholars Private School, Dubai, U.A.E.

JUST IN TIME FOR LOVE

Hard Shell Word Factory, 1998

Microchick’s 24 erotic science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories are throwbacks to the paranormal fiction published in men's magazines during the late 20th Century, and feature demons, ghosts, mermaids, and hot, out-of-this-world sex.

MICROCHICK

Amazon Kindle, 2011

PSI COPS

Wildside Press, 2000

 

Books In Motion, 1995

Read by Maynard Villars

 

Geeks and Freaks.

 

That’s what Detective Sergeant Tony Carvelli thinks of Psi Cops until he’s faced with a sadistic serial killer who leaves no evidence behind.

 

In a near-future St. Louis, after sexually-transmitted diseases have been eliminated and sex without commitment is a lifestyle for much of the population, Carvelli investigates the deaths of women dismembered in their own bedrooms.

 

Carvelli still believes in the old values: love before sex and investigation before technology. When Psi Cop Colleen Allison is assigned to the case against his wishes—thanks to his new partner, recently-promoted Phil Palmer—Carvelli resents her and everything she represents.

 

Fighting against time and against each other, Carvelli, Palmer, and Allison struggle to find the killer before he strikes again.

“...a suspenseful blend of SF and mystery.”—Science Fiction Chronicle

Hard men and busty babes dominate the 23 erotic crime fiction stories included in Sex, Violence & Half A Million Dollars. These stories, throwbacks to the hardboiled and noir mystery fiction published in men's magazines during the late 20th Century, feature clever crimes and smokin' hot sex.

SEX, VIOLENCE & HALF A MILLION DOLLARS

Amazon Kindle, 2011

Writing as Rolinda Hay

 

Christiana Kern is already overworked as the top customer service representative at Wett, Inc., the country’s largest printer of special interest magazines, when her boss assigns her a new title. She isn’t eager to accept the additional responsibility...until she meets Bobby Ray Cartwright, the sexy rancher publishing the start-up magazine. It isn’t long before business and pleasure mix and Christiana learns that Stud isn’t just the title of Bobby Ray’s new publication. Soon Christiana is having the best sex ever and is facing life-altering decisions in and out of the bedroom.

STUD

Amazon Kindle, 2011

TEQUILA SUNRISE

Wildside Press, 2000

Nathaniel Rose.

 

Private Eye. Tough Guy.

 

He works hard, plays hard, and loves hard. Rose would do anything for the women in his life, from the strippers to the socialites.

 

When an old case comes back to haunt him, who can Rose trust?

 

When a client’s husband disappears, why does Rose lose his taste for fast food?

 

When a young woman wants to make a few copies, why does she honeymoon in heaven?

 

When seven witnesses watch a man kill his wife and her lover, how lucky can he be?

 

When a socialite wants her husband dead, is she man enough to do it?

 

When a stripper bites off more than she can chew, what does Rose uncover?

 

When a lawyer blackmails her own clients, what’s love got to do with it?

 

After a brief tour of Korea and ten years as a cop, Rose now walks the mean streets of St. Louis, Missouri. Whether it takes brains, brawn, or bullets to solve a case, and with a hardboiled sense of justice to guide him, Rose takes the most difficult cases and the most beautiful clients to heart.

“Bracken’s plot twists are fresh and innovative...you’ll find Tequila Sunrise an intoxicating treat.”—Skullduggery

 

“Nathaniel Rose, St. Louis private eye of the non-wisecracking, violence-relishing, sexually busy sort...in seven capably written cases.”—Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Twin Spins #1 contains the complete text of Melissa Ford’s YA novel His Friday Girls and the complete text of Michael Bracken’s YA novel Just in Time For Love (see details above).

TWIN SPINS #1:

HIS FRIDAY GIRLS

Melissa Ford

JUST IN TIME FOR LOVE Michael Bracken

Hard Shell Word Factory, 2001

Melissa Grant, the 25-year-old owner of a tack shop, is disgusted with the way the new riding instructor at Rocking Horse Stables treats her classmates during their first lesson, and her attempt to confront him is thwarted when she bursts into his apartment over the observation room and finds him half-undressed.

 

Will an escalating series of attractions and repulsions set against the backdrop of the riding stable where Hans Edelmann teaches and the narrator has her shop—including their preparations for the annual competition at Stallion Stables, the pending sale of Rocking Horse Stables, and the narrator’s mistaken belief that Edelmann is interested in an older woman—lead to true love?

UNBRIDLED LOVE

Amazon Kindle, 2010

YESTERDAY IN BLOOD AND BONE

Wildside Press, 2005

Michael Bracken returns with another impressive collection of hardboiled crime fiction, including his original-to-this-collection novella “Yesterday in Blood and Bone.”

 

When veteran newspaper reporter Benjamin “Bucky” Weaver and Alderman William Kelvin are killed, reporter Dan Fox finds himself searching deep into the past to discover how the two men were connected and why someone would want them dead. In the process, Fox learns a lesson about prejudice, 1950’s justice, and how the power of the press is sometimes embodied in the things that aren’t said.

 

Also included is the Derringer Award-winning “All My Yesterdays” and the Derringer Award-nominated “Cuts Like a Knife.”

“In twenty hardboiled stories, two new including a title novella with a good newspaper background, the prolific Bracken again proves a capable entertainer.”—Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine