Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Dark Humour

Meet Lance. 38-years-old. Works a meaningless job. Still lives above his parents’ garage. By all accounts, a world-class loser. Except for one glaring exception . . . he has a million-dollar face. Lance has been mistaken twenty-eight times for the Oscar-winning movie star, James Jansen, and for the last 10 years, he’s saved his money, studied Jansen’s films, his moves, his idiosyncrasies, even the way he speaks. Now, after an unceremonious termination from his job, Lance has decided that the time has come to go after his dream.

Sweetpea is coming home at last…Newly married, with a loving family surrounding her, everything's coming up roses for ex-serial killer Rhiannon Lewis, right? Wrong. Her husband has just been shot, and the daughter she left behind in the UK is desperately ill. She’s got no choice but to flee the States and return home, back to her roots, where she’s in danger of being recognised and arrested at any moment.

A man with dark thoughts on his mind is racing along the remote snowy roads of Hurmevaara in Finland when there is flash in the sky and something crashes into the car. That something turns about to be a highly valuable meteorite. With euro signs lighting up the eyes of the locals, the unexpected treasure is temporarily placed in a neighbourhood museum, under the watchful eye of a priest named Joel.

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and...no qualms about a little murder. Ever since her darling father's untimely death when she was only 18, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late 80s, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father's ancient armchair. It's a solitary existence, and she likes it that way.

Fearne Dixon hates Christmas. As the long-suffering wife of the Ellsbury Christmas Market’s manager, she’s sick to the back teeth of it and it’s still only November. But then the bodies start piling up, an old rival arrives back in her life, and Fearne reaches breaking point.

Jessamyn St. Germain is meant to be a star. Not an actor who occasionally books yogurt commercials and certainly not a lowly usher at one of Vancouver's smallest regional theatres. No, she is bound for greatness, and that's why the part of Maria in the theatre's upcoming production of The Sound of Music is hers. Or it's going to be.

In his startling and singular new short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person', a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World', which reveals a woman's agonised consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men', a dark, hilarious series of portraits of men whose fear of women renders them grotesque.

Sasha North has gone missing. Everyone says she's run away, but I know better. We've been best friends since we were teenagers, since Sasha swept into the neighbourhood and brought colour to my life. Until a brutal attack changed both our lives forever. I know what happened that night. I know who wants revenge. And if Sasha has been taken. I know I'm next.

When their mother died, she had only one request: that her daughters take a pilgrimage across India to carry out her final rites. Suddenly, the three are packing their bags and heading to the airport, together for the first time in years. The sisters seem to have nothing in common, but they need each other now more than ever. And as the miles rack up on their family road-trip, each of them will make unexpected discoveries about themselves and each other. After all, there are no secrets between sisters....

Acompañada de tres hombres, una mujer llega a un pueblo en busca del panadero para cobrar venganza. Cuando lo encuentra, lo balacea y le prende fuego al lugar. Las investigaciones del crimen revelarán los oscuros secretos de las conocidas hermanas Baladro, dueñas de cantinas y prostíbulos. Estafas, trata de mujeres, entierros clandestinos y asesinatos conforman el siniestro reino que las dos mujeres, Serafina y Arcángela, han construido a su alrededor.

Chiltern boards the 23:50 sleeper train from London to Edinburgh with two pork pies, six beers and a packet of chocolate digestives. At 23:55 he sends a message to all 158 people in his contacts, telling them that he plans to end his life in the morning. He then switches his phone to flight mode. He’s said goodbye. To him, it’s the end of his story - and time to crack open the biscuits. But across the world, 158 phones are lighting up with a notification.

A twisted tale of murder in the world of big-stakes bass fishing tournaments. Filled with ex-wives, evangelists, and an armed pit-bull, this is a story that could only be concocted by Carl Hiaasen, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best-selling author, and czar of Florida noir fiction.

Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jagermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul. When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey's precocious new friend Ruth in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp.

Gwen’s life has stalled. She’s in her mid-thirties, perpetually single, her friends are busy procreating in the country and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around herbaceous borders and the council’s wheelie-bin timetable. Above all she’s lonely. But then, isn’t everyone? When Gwen’s made redundant from a job she drifted into a decade ago and never left, she realises it’s time to make a change.

Richard Brautigan's world is one of gentle magic and marvelous laughter, of the incredibly beautiful and the beautifully incredible. Trout Fishing in America is a pseudonym for the miraculous. A journey that begins at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square, that wanders through the wonders of America's rural waterways, and that ends, inevitably, with mayonnaise. Funny, wild, and sweet, Trout Fishing in America is an incomparable guidebook to the delights of exploration.

For the first time, the Internet phenomenon is now in print! Beheading a zombie isn't easy in a world where you're more afraid of the living than the dead. Adrian Ring's simple life is thrown into chaos when the world is ripped apart by a plague of undead and legions of desperate survivors. Retreating to Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy, Adrian attempts to rescue friends and family on the way while dancing around his impending insanity over who and what he left behind, and evading maniac survivors.

Björn has been given an ultimatum: repair his work-life balance, or his wife Katharina will leave him - and take their daughter. He reluctantly starts a mindfulness class and to his surprise, it's a revelation. He becomes calmer, more focused, and he's starting to understand what's really important in life. So when his client and brutal crime boss Dragan Sergowicz tries to interfere with his precious family time, Björn remembers his new-found goal to find serenity - and kills him.

Two weeks before his twenty-first birthday, Las Vegas native Bobby Ingersoll finds out he’s inherited a crushing gambling debt from his scumbag father. The debt is owed to an even scummier bag named Fraser Ruphart who oversees his bottom-rung criminal empire from the classy-adjacent Trump International Hotel. Bobby’s prospects of paying off the note, which comes due the day he turns twenty-one, are about as dim as the sign on the tower’s façade.

A kid's book (that's not really for kids) to help you cope with the world's rapid descent into a dystopian societal collapse. Sleep well!

Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless hotel rooms and broken relationships have left him dissatisfied with his life. He's then rocked by a chance encounter with Frank Begbie, from whom he'd been hiding for years after a terrible betrayal and the resulting debt. But the psychotic Begbie appears to have reinvented himself as a celebrated artist and - much to Mark's astonishment - doesn't seem interested in revenge.