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Come Sundown, fiction by Shari Held

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Monday afternoon Emma carried her father’s clean laundry to his room and opened his bureau drawer. The gun lay there as if it were still part of his daily life rather than a remnant from his years as Sheriff Claud Gillespie of Morgan County. She ran her fingers through her bedraggled hair and bit her lower lip. No matter where she hid the gun, he always found it. So far, it had never been loaded. Maybe his dementia had robbed him of the ability to remember how to load it. He’d declined during the six months she’d come back home to Indiana to care for him. I’ll have to hide the gun again soon. But where? She’d tried the top shelf in the linen closet, the kitchen pantry behind the flour canister, underneath the loose board in the dining room, even her bedroom closet. He’d found it every time, without her even realizing he’d been searching. It was as if he and that gun had an unbreakable bond. She should get rid of it. But she couldn’t bring herself to do that. The gun evoked to...
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Oblivion Angels by Sheldon Lee Compton, reviewed by Hugh Blanton

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  by Sheldon Lee Compton 193 pages Cowboy Jamboree Press 2/25 $15.99 Opioid Oblivion by Hugh Blanton W hen the Sackler family and their drug company Purdue Pharma found themselves on the receiving end of numerous lawsuits during the height of the opioid epidemic, they were called to Congress to testify. In 2020 the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the US House of Representatives put David Sackler on the hot seat for hours of testimony. Afterward, representative James Comer of Kentucky said there were partisan divisions in reaction to Sackler's deposition, but they were united in at least one aspect: "I think our opinion of Purdue Pharma and the actions of your family...are sickening." The Sacklers offered up a huge settlement of $6 billion, but with a proviso that immunized them from future lawsuits. In June 2024 the US Supreme Court told them to shove their offer up their asses. *** Sheldon Lee Compton's latest novel Oblivion Angels is a f...
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Publishing Schedule for 2025 (thus far)

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I'm posting this list to let everyone know where accepted writers stand in the queue. There are others--reviews--that will go up off-cycle. I appreciate your patience with me as I catch up from last year: J.E. Irvin 2/10 Shari Held 2/17 Stanton McCaffery 2/24 Michael Bracken 3/3 Mark Safranko, 3/10 Tom Barlow 3/17 Vinnie Hansen 3/24 Steve Liskow 4/7 David Rachels 4/14 Scott Blackburn, 4/22 Robb White 5/5 Mike McHone 5/12 James McCrone 5/19 Jeff Esterholm 5/26
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All About the Pie, fiction by J.E. Ivin

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G ene Polson had a keen mind, a woodworker’s hands, and an appetite for sweet treats and women, not necessarily in that order. Everyone in Star Lake knew the man. Most liked him. However, they shook their heads and sighed whenever they saw him escorting a new lady friend to The Sand Bar, named after the actual sandy bar visible in the lake. The natural formation served as a gathering spot for pontoon boats during the summer season. Tourists loved the watery drinking hole. Locals, not so much. Too raucous. Too down-state. For residents, the bricks-and-mortar establishment remained the only place in town where one could get a beer, cop a feel, and savor a yummy dessert without moving off the barstool. Over the years, the mirrored ceiling had witnessed most of Gene’s liaisons, beginning with the one that produced his only child. But it never saw the final hookup coming, the one that left the town reeling and the philandering Polson’s disappearance a puzzle no one could solve. Gene and...
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The Liberator, fiction by Brandon Barrows

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  W e were hanging out in Kelvin Dander’s basement—me, Kelvin, and Dan Roque—drinking stolen Coors and playing Call of Duty on co-op. It was kind of half-assed, each of us taking a turn on the controller, not really caring if we helped the guy online or not. It was just something to kill time. There was a burst of gunfire from the television and then the rando whose game we’d joined was screaming at us through the headset. “A/D/S, you idiot! A/D/S! You’re never gonna—“ I pulled the headset off. Kid sounded about twelve years old. I tossed the headset and the controller onto the couch. Dan reached for them but the outside door to the basement opened, spilling sunlight across the room, washing out the TV screen. Caleb Meyer was standing at the top of the three steps that led to the Danders’ side yard. He hopped down to the concrete floor, not bothering to shut the door. Backlit like that, it made it hard to look at Caleb head-on and he probably knew it. I was pretty sure he t...
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