It’s Christmastime 1960 in Black River Falls, Iowa, but with an Indian summer keeping the temperature at 75 degrees, it sure doesn’t feel like winter. It’s so warm, in fact, that the Lucky Star Drive-In is still open, and Rick Conroy is still drag-racing the nights away with his friends on a deadly stretch of highway outside of town. When Rick slams fatally into a bridge at 90 miles an hour, holiday cheer veers toward foul play, for the police find his brake line to be as lacerated as his spine. The solution does not come easily for struggling lawyer and sometime-investigator Sam McCain, who is dragged into the case by the incorrigible Judge Esme Anne Whitney. Leads go nowhere, tensions mount. Add to that his personal problems—his father has lung cancer and a recent one-night stand is pointing to scandal—and it’s no wonder the holiday heat wave is making this McCain Christmas the darkest, and most dangerous, of the decade. [Sam McCain is] “the kind of hero any small town could take to its heart.”—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review Gorman wonderfully evokes the sorrows and pleasures of a certain Midwestern past.”—The Wall Street Journal “Gorman’s successful capturing of time and place ... sharply evokes the twilight of the ’50s.”—Los Angeles Times
Ed Gorman is an award winning American author best known for his crime and mystery fiction. He wrote The Poker Club which is now a film of the same name directed by Tim McCann.
He has written under many pseudonyms including "E. J. Gorman" and "Daniel Ransom." He won a Spur Award for Best Short Fiction for his short story "The Face" in 1992. His fiction collection Cages was nominated for the 1995 Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection. His collection The Dark Fantastic was nominated for the same award in 2001.
He has contributed to many magazines and other publications including Xero, Black Lizard, Cemetery Dance, the anthology Tales of Zorro, and many more.
Visit his blog at newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com
