Generation Loss - Zeno Agency Ltd.

In this instalment of Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to the 25th Anniversary anthology of BEST NEW HORROR. Edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell, and published by PS Publishing, the collection includes stories by Ian R. MacLeod (1/72nd Scale) and Elizabeth Hand (On the Town Route).

Ian R. MacLeod is the author of many critically-acclaimed novels and short stories, including THE LIGHT AGES, THE SUMMER ISLES and WAKE UP AND DREAM. His most recent novella was THE REPARATEUR OF STRASBOURG, published by PS Publishing. His next book is the anthology FROST ON GLASS, due to also be published by PS Publishing next year.

Elizabeth Hand is the critically-acclaimed author of a number of novels. In the UK, Constable & Robinson most recently published GENERATION LOSS and AVAILABLE DARK. Here’s the synopsis for the former…

Cass Neary is on her way down, and almost out when an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer. When she arrives Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and she finds one final shot at redemption. Patricia Highsmith meets Patti Smith in this mesmerizing literary thriller.

The secrets of small-town life can be more deadly than fist fights and dead junkies . . .

Cass Neary is not afraid of living on the edge. A photographer whose shots of New York’s punk scene in the seventies earned her fame, caché, and a cultish kind of cool, Cass has spent much of her life in the dark, watching and waiting. But thirty years later she is alone, adrift and falling rapidly into oblivion. So when an old acquaintance asks her to interview a fellow photographer – a notorious recluse who lives on an island off the Maine coast – she accepts.

There, she learns about a decades-old crime that is still claiming new victims – and comes to realise that her days of living dangerously are not over yet: amid this inhospitable hinterland, Cass comes to realise that her final shot might also be a shot at redemption.

Patricia Highsmith meets Patti Smith in this mesmerizing literary thriller.

Zeno represents Elizabeth Hand in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of the Martha Millard Literary Agency in New York.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Hand, whose AVAILABLE DARK is published tomorrow in the UK by Constable & Robinson! It is the second novel featuring Cass Neary, and follows GENERATION LOSS. Below are the covers for both books (we think they look really great together)…

And here’s the synopsis…

As this riveting tour-de-force opens, the police already want to talk to the photographer Cass Neary about a mysterious death she was involved with previously, but before they can bring her in, Cass accepts a job offer from overseas and hops on a plane.

In Helsinki, she authenticates a series of disturbing but stunning images taken by a famous fashion photographer who has cut himself off from the violent Nordic music scene where he first made his reputation. Paid off by her shady employer, she buys a one-way ticket to Reykjavik, in search of a lover from her own dark past.

But when the fashion photographer’s mutilated corpse is discovered back in Finland, Cass finds herself sucked into a vortex of ancient myth and betrayal, vengeance and serial murder, set against a bone-splintering soundtrack of black metal and the terrifying beauty of the sunless Icelandic wilderness.

In this eagerly awaited sequel to the award-winning Generation Loss, Cass Neary finds her own worst fears confirmed: it’s always darkest before it turns completely black.

AVAILABLE DARK is a searing and iconoclastic crime novel, and preceding work GENERATION LOSS is generally considered an underground classic. In this latest installment, Hand sends our protagonist, Cass Neary into the shadowy world of crime in Scandinavia’s coldest corners.

‘A skin-blistering crime novel as edgy and black as dried blood on a moonlit night.’ – Robert Crais

‘Fiercely frightening yet hauntingly beautiful.’ – Tess Gerritsen

‘Intense and atmospheric… Hand writes with craftsmanship and passion.’ – George Pelecanos

‘There’s a deadly beauty to her bleak rendering of the Nordic landscape.’ – New York Times Book Review

‘Elizabeth Hand takes us on a dangerous and drug-fuelled trip through a world of art-fetishists, death metal bands, and Nordic blood cults. This book disturbs and delights.’ – Paul Doiron, author of The Poacher’s Son

Elizabeth Hand is represented by Zeno in the UK & Commonwealth on behalf of the Martha Millard Literary Agency in New York.

Zeno Agency Ltd.

Tag: Generation Loss

Short Fiction Watch: Ian R. MacLeod & Elizabeth Hand

Happy Publication Day (tomorrow) Elizabeth Hand!