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Joe Clifford is acquisitions editor for Gutter Books and producer of Lip Service West, a “gritty, real, raw” reading series in Oakland, CA. He is the author of several books, including Junkie Love, Lamentation, and December Boys, as well as editor of Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Stories Based on the Songs of Bruce Springsteen. Joe’s writing can be found at www.joeclifford.com.

Jay Porter, the newest employee at NorthEastern Insurance in New Hampshire, is investigating an accident claim when he learns the teenager behind the wheel was arrested for minor drug possession and sentenced to a hardcore behavioral modification center. At the county courthouse, Jay meets Nicki, a young college intern, who tips him off to a possible scandal—first-time juvenile offenders being shipped to private institutions for political kickbacks. He learns that long-time family nemeses, Adam and Michael Lombardi, may have a stake in the scheme. Is Jay’s mission to help these kids a legitimate crusade? Or is his thirst for revenge driven by the guilt he feels over his own junkie brother’s death? These questions conspire to tear apart tranquility and drive a wedge between Jay and his wife Jenny. With help from new friend Nicki, and a couple of old friends, Jay finds himself thrust back into a past he had hoped to leave behind, putting everything—and everyone he loves—at risk in pursuit of the truth.

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Category: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

A voice filled with sincerity, salvation, and splendor. A voice as stark, unforgiving, and mesmerizing as blood backing into the needle. ~ J.A. Kazimer, The Ampersand Review From the cow fields of Connecticut to the streets of San Francisco, Joe Clifford’s JUNKIE LOVE traverses the lost highways of America, down the rocky roads of mental illness to the dead ends of addiction. Based on Clifford’s own harrowing experience with drugs as a rock ’n’ roll wannabe in the 1990s, the book draws on the best of Kerouac & the Beats, injecting a heavy dose of pulp fiction as it threads a rollicking narrative through a doomed love triangle, lit up by the many strange characters he meets along the way. Part road story, part resurrection tale, Junkie Love finds a way to laugh in one’s darkest hour, while never abandoning its heart in search of a home. JUNKIE LOVE by Joe Clifford is an original ride through the down-and-dirty underside of the drug and music scene, inspired and propelled by Jack Kerouac’s youthful dreams of an American nirvana, translated to a later, darker generation. Clifford is its passionate spokesman. "Joe Clifford’s Junkie Love portrays high-heeled heroin amour, beautiful and vicious, full of front seat hot sex and brutal cop raids, secret rehab gropes and smack-fueled crime sprees. In prose that speeds like a stolen car, Clifford does for opiated romance what Michael Herr did for war and F.X. Toole for prize fights: brings mind-blowing news from hells beyond imagining." - Alan Kaufman, author of Jew Boy and The Outlaw Bible of American Literature "No one writes this good the first time out, do they? Joe Clifford’s Junkie Love is a literary achievement of the first order. Junkie Love is both harrowing and haunting, hypnotic and hilarious. Clifford can flat-out tell a story. He’s savvy, insightful, and fearless. Trust me, here’s a world that’s more vivid, unnerving, and compelling than the one you’re living in, written with the exhilaration and abandon of an improbable survivor." - John Dufresne, author of Requiem, Mass (a People magazine’s Book Pick of the Week) "Joe Clifford reminds us that even in the most punishing circumstances, the human heart doesn’t just struggle or abide, it points the way home. Junkie Love is a savage, funny, ravishing gift of a book, strangely gentle and beautifully strange. Like Jimmy Santiago Baca’s A Place to Stand, it reveals that man in extremis is the man in the mirror, and that our own humanity resides precisely in the willingness to see the irreparable fault lines in our own souls, to witness despite the impenetrable darkness: to love. All men should be as strong and caring—and yes, flawed—as Joe Clifford; all books should be this wicked and mesmerizing and just plain good." - David Corbett, Author of Blood of Paradise and Do They Know I’m Running? "At turns tender, at turns scalding, Joe Clifford’s Junkie Love is a raw, articulate, poignant, comic and steely-eyed look into the ravages and ravishments of being a heroin addict in San Francisco at the end of the millennium. It’s an edgy coming-of-age tale of survival and redemption refracted trough the haze of rock ’n’ roll and the noir of addiction, always true to the impulse, however warped, humans have to seek out love and companionship in spite of the depravity of their situation. An entire vivid underworld—populated with dealers and the DEA, dope fiends and their lovers—crystallizes and crackles in the blue flame of Clifford’s prose. Look out Bill Burroughs, move over Irvine Welsh, make way Jim Carroll, you’ve got company!" - Ravi Shankar, Executive Director of Drunken Boat and author/editor of five collections of poetry "Joe Clifford casts a cold, clear eye on the brutal landscape of addiction and those who populate it. This is a tough, authoritative work, crackling with tension, oozing dread." - Les Standiford, author of Last Train to Paradise

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Category: Biographies & Memoirs

2015 Anthony Award Nominee for Best Mystery NovelIn a frigid New Hampshire winter, Jay Porter is trying to eke out a living and maintain some semblance of a relationship with his former girlfriend and their two-year-old son. When he receives an urgent call that Chris, his drug-addicted brother, is being questioned by the sheriff about his missing junkie business partner, Jay feels obliged to come to his rescue. After Jay negotiates his brother's release from the county jail, Chris disappears into the night. As Jay begins to search for him, he is plunged into a cauldron of ugly lies and long-kept secrets that could tear apart his small hometown and threaten the lives of Jay and all those he holds dear. Powerful forces come into play that will stop at nothing until Chris is dead and the information he harbors is destroyed.

Kindle Price: $7.99

Category: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Clifford’s debut short story collection Choice Cuts mines the fractured territory of the marginalized, misanthropic, and short-changed. From morally bereft television producers desperate for a hit, to veterans suffering psychotic splits, Clifford delves into the madness and desperation that plague those living on the edge, while never surrendering the search for the light that guides us all. In these fast-paced, hard-hitting tales of ne’er-do-wells, addicts, and gangsters, two predominant themes emerge throughout the collection: human life frequently reduced to little more than pieces of meat, and the bad choices we often make to escape that fate, however good our intentions. Echoing the pulp past of Thompson and Keene, with the sardonic worldview of Caulfield and Durden, Clifford’s style is lean, mean, and unforgiving.Joe Clifford is the producer of Lip Service West, a “gritty, real, raw” reading series in Oakland, CA. His work has appeared in Big Bridge, the Bryant Review, the Connecticut Review, Drunken Boat, Fringe, Opium, and Word Riot, among others. Joe’s writing can be found at www.joeclifford.com. His novel Wake the Undertaker will be out later in the year.

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Category: Literature & Fiction

Like some born killers, this pairing of crime stories and the songs of Bruce Springsteen is a natural one. Each of the accomplished authors in this unique anthology chose a Springsteen title as a starting point, and in the criminally inclined spirit of the Boss, drove headlong to wherever that inspiration called. The destinations are as wildly diverse and far-reaching as the songs that influenced them. Some arrive at hope and redemption; others end up smoking in a ditch. One thing’s for sure: you sign up for this ride, and Trouble in the Heartland will transport you somewhere unforgettable.

Kindle Price: $7.99

Category: Literature & Fiction