Sarah Weinman - Sex, Thugs, Roll, and Rock & Roll

Hugh Lessigis a career newspaperman who has worked in his native Pennsylvania and Virginia. He now lives in Richmond, Virginia, where he reports on state politics, a beat that provides occasional inspiration for things nefarious and noir. Besides Thuglit , his short stories have appeared in Plots with Guns and Thrilling Detective .

Richard J. Martin Jr.was born in 1956 in Bossier City, Louisiana, and came to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 at age six. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University’s Creative Writing Program and works as a grant writer for nonprofit human service agencies. His stories, poems, and articles have appeared in the San Francisco Herald, Seattle Weekly, Thuglit, Working Magazine, Bay Area Reporter, In the Fray , the Noe Valley Voice, Tea Party , the Red Hills Review , and Frisko Magazine , as well as trade publications like the Walden House Journal and Successful Fundraising . He’s a member of San Francisco Musicians Union Local 6, and currently divides his time between San Francisco and Lakeport, California.

Steven M. Messnerlives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he is employed as a legal assistant and personal trainer. He received his bachelor’s degree in English from West Virginia University in 1994. In 2002 he graduated from Johns Hopkins University, where he received his master’s degree in fiction writing. He has recently finished his first book, The Barbecue Wire Boy , and is currently working on a book based on his Burma Ludlow character.

Justin Porterwas born and raised in New York. He’s crass, uneducated, obnoxious, and has lain down with dogs so many times that he’s on a first-name basis with three generations of fleas. He’s been published a few places online for his fiction and for journalism in the New York Times . He’s been a teacher, a skateboarder, an amateur fighter, a Rollerblade salesman, and a number of other ridiculous things. He’s eagerly awaiting the next round of absurdity. And he thanks everybody who does, for reading.

Marcus Sakeyspent ten years in advertising, which gave him the perfect background to write about criminals and killers. His debut novel, The Blade Itself , was a New York Times Editor’s Pick, featured on CBS Sunday Morning , and named one of Esquire magazine’s 5 Best Reads of 2007. It has been translated into numerous languages, and the film rights have been purchased by Ben Affleck for Miramax. His second novel, At the City’s Edge , was released to similar acclaim, and he is currently working on a four-book contract for Dutton. Marcus has shadowed homicide detectives, toured the morgue, interviewed Special Forces officers, ridden with L.A. gang cops, and learned to pick a deadbolt in sixty seconds. He swears it was all for research.

Mike Sheeterattended Ohio State University. He has worked as a magazine editor, advertising copywriter, and screenwriter.

Anthony Neil Smithwas born and raised on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, has lived in Michigan, and currently resides in Minnesota. He is the author of the novels Psychosomatic, The Drummer , and Yellow Medicine , and his short stories have appeared all over the place, including Thuglit , obviously. He is also the editor of the Plots with Guns Web-zine. Okay? Is that enough? What more do you need to know?

Jason Starris the Barry and Anthony Award-winning author of eight crime novels, which are published in ten languages. He also writes screenplays, cowrites a series of books with Ken Bruen for Hard Case Crime , and is at work on a graphic novel to be published by DC Comics. He lives in New York City.

Albert Tucherbegan writing about Diana Andrews with the new millennium and is now up to fifteen published stories and five unpublished novels. Why is he obsessed with a hooker? Because prostitution is as hard-boiled and as noir as it gets. Self-deception is at the core of the transaction, and it always runs out.

Scott Wolvenis the author of Controlled Burn (Scribner). Wolven’s stories have appeared six years in a row in the Best American Mystery Story series (Houghton Mifflin), including 2007, selected by guest editor Carl Hiaasen and series editor Otto Penzler. Wolven also contributed a story to Expletive Deleted (Bleak House) edited by Jennifer Jordan.

I don’t know if any of you out there in Citizens-ville know just how hard it is to pare down a year’s worth of blood-and-guts, balls-out stories into this anthology.

It’s torturous.

My first edit-my “dream edit”-came in at over 260,000 words. I’m not kidding. More than double the number of words you’ve got clutched between your hairy palms right now.

SO, in order to avoid a couple of slugs to the back of the skull from the divine Michaela Hamilton over at Kensington, I had to cut some stories that flat-out deserve to be in here.

Listed below are the contributors to our second year of Thuglit . Raise your glasses of hooch high, cats and kittens. They’ve earned my respect, and damn sure deserve yours.

Hana K. Lee-Mark Bowen-Kevin McCarthy-Miles Archer-Ann Androla-Pete Hogenson-Marianne Rogoff-Cristobal Camaras-James Williams-Tim Wohlforth-AT Mango-Dave Zeltserman-Joseph Taverney-Robert Spencer-Karl Koweski-J. D. Smith-David C. Daniel-Alejandro Pena-Max Glaessner-Tony Black-Lloyd Hudson Frye-Keith Gilman-Michael Colangelo-Paul Beckman-Bryon Quertermous-Barry Baldwin-David Rosenstock-Kieran Shea-Ed Lynskey-Geoff Hyatt-Glenn Gray-Ian Nicholas Carleton-Nathan Cain-Hilary Davidson-William Boyle-Brian Haycock-Tim Murr-Kim Cushman-Brian Murphy-Linda Sharps-Anthony Rainone-Katherine Tomlinson

Thank you all. Without you, there is no Thuglit .

Thanks to YOU, Not-So-Gentle Reader, for slinging down your dirty blood money for the book. Next year, buy two, ya chiselin’ mugs…

And to Allison, my Bruising Bride of the Beatdown, my Lady Detroit…Without you, none of it would be worth spit.

Copyright © 2009 by Todd Robinson

Introduction copyright © 2009 by Sarah Weinman

“Double Down” copyright © 2009 by Jason Starr

“Like Riding a Moped” copyright © 2009 by Jordan Harper

“Viddi and the Bucharest Brawler” copyright © 2009 by Jónas Knútsson

“A Flood of Mexican Porn Star Tits” copyright © 2009 by Justin Porter

“Markers” copyright © 2009 by Albert Tucher

“Bullets and Fire” copyright © 2009 by Joe R. Lansdale

“Judy’s Big Score” copyright © 2009 by Patrick J. Lambe

“Killing Billy Blain” copyright © 2009 by D. T. Kelly

“Buddha Behind Bars” copyright © 2009 by Daniel Hatadi

“The Days When You Were Anything Else” copyright © 2009 by Marcus Sakey

“Cramp” copyright © 2009 by Anthony Neil Smith

“Private Craps Shooter at Dawn” copyright © 2009 by Steven M. Messner

“The Trouble with Trolls” copyright © 2009 by Patricia Abbott

“Eulogy for a Player” copyright © 2009 by Richard J. Martin Jr.

“Politoburg” copyright © 2009 by Jedidiah Ayres

“Haermund Hardaxe Was Here” copyright © 2009 by Allan Guthrie

“We All Come from Splattertown” copyright © 2009 by Hugh Lessig

“The Switch” copyright © 2009 by Lyman Feero

“Big Load of Trouble” copyright © 2009 by Greg Bardsley

“Violated” copyright © 2009 by Mike Sheeter

“Black Sun” copyright © 2009 by Gary Carson

“Customer Service” copyright © 2009 by Matthew Baldwin