This image is the cover for the book Wetbones

Wetbones

A flesh-and-soul-devouring addiction runs rampant through the dark playground of the Hollywood elite in this tale of horror from a Bram Stoker Award winner.

Welcome to Los Angeles, where every addiction is encouraged. . . .

Struggling Hollywood screenwriter Tom Prentice can hardly believe that the emaciated and mutilated corpse lying on the morgue slab was once his ex-wife. Then his roommate’s missing brother turns up in a local hospital having sliced open his own chest and legs for some sick, inexplicable reason. In Oakland, the Reverend Garner, a recovering addict, leaves his ministry in search of his teenage daughter, who was last seen in the company of her ghoulish kidnapper. And the Los Angeles police are meanwhile baffled in their hunt for the elusive “Wetbones” serial killer who leaves nothing of his victims behind except a damp, grisly pile of bones.

Though Tom, the reverend, and the LAPD are on separate quests for answers, they are all being led into the darkest shadows of Hollywood, where the debauchery never ceases and pleasure is a drug that devours human flesh, blood, and sanity. But the true source of the all-consuming addiction is the most horrifying revelation of all, for it is not of this rational Earth.

From International Horror Guild Award–winning author John Shirley, the acclaimed “splatterpunk” classic Wetbones combines the monstrous inventiveness of H. P. Lovecraft with the exquisite excess of Clive Barker. A true masterwork of modern terror, it’s decidedly not for the faint of heart.

John Shirley

John Shirley is one of the original cyberpunk authors, and appears in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology. His novel City Come A-Walkin’, and his Eclipse trilogy, are regarded as seminal cyberpunk works. He is the winner of the 1998 Bram Stoker Award for his story collection, Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side. His novels include A Splendid ChaosDemons, Wetbones, Black Glass, Crawlers, The Other EndHigh, and Stormland. Shirley has also written scripts for films such as The Crow and television shows such as Stark Trek: Deep Space Nine, as well as lyrics for American rock band Blue Öyster Cult.

Open Road Media