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Enough Is Enough
A Few Casualties So What follows a former hitman turned reluctant problem-solver who is tasked to prevent a gang war by figuring out who murdered two teens from rival crime families. What was your inspiration for Chubby Pone’s character, and how did you craft his outlook on life?
Chubby is a nickname my family gave me. Though I am not fat, my oldest sister gave it to me when I was a baby, and Pone came from a coworker whose maiden name was Pone. I thought of Al Capone, which gave the character a gangster appeal. I based him on myself on some things I have gone through in my life, and also my son, who dealt with ignorance from growing up with alopecia. He was teased a lot, and as he got older, he accepted baldness and is now a college graduate and married. I wanted a character with a light and dark heart when it is needed. You can ignore people who are immature, but there are times when you have to say that enough is enough and fight back.
When you first sat down to write this story, did you know where you were going, or did the twists come as you were writing?
The first part of the book, I did, and then the characters started talking to me if that makes any sense. Most writers will tell you that as you get deeper into your story, the characters start to come to life and give you ideas on what to do next.
Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out, and what can your fans expect in the next story?
Yes, and the 2nd book is already out. ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE BIG EASY: Down On The Bayou. The most disgusting and blackest character I ever created. You’ll have to buy and read the book to find out what I mean.
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Bad Actor
Bad Actor is a gritty and sharply observed noir that follows Ellis Dunaway, a washed-up TV writer turned private investigator, as he’s pulled back toward the fringes of Hollywood. The book blends a murder mystery involving the death of a high-profile agent, the troubles of fallen actor Urs Schreiber, and Ellis’s own struggles with sobriety, fading relevance, and financial strain. Vaughn sets the action against a vividly sketched Los Angeles, equal parts glitz, decay, and absurdity, while drawing the reader deep into Ellis’s sardonic inner world.
The writing had me hooked from page one. Vaughn’s voice is lean, smart, and sly, with a knack for tossing in lines that sting as much as they amuse. The dialogue crackles, bouncing between bone-dry humor and tense undercurrents. I loved how Ellis is flawed without being a cliché. He’s self-aware enough to see his own failings, but still likely to trip over them anyway. The mix of PI procedural detail, showbiz satire, and personal confessions makes the book feel like it’s living in multiple genres at once. And somehow, Vaughn keeps the balance.
Beneath the twists and snappy banter, there’s a steady hum of commentary on reinvention, ego, and the way Los Angeles eats its own. Vaughn doesn’t preach; he just lets his characters prove the point. I found myself laughing in one paragraph and then unexpectedly feeling the weight of Ellis’s loneliness in the next. The city in this book isn’t just a backdrop, it’s a character with its own moods, grudges, and jokes. It reminded me of walking through Hollywood after midnight: the beauty, the weirdness, the sense that anything could happen, good or bad.
Bad Actor delivers as both a mystery and a character study. It’s for readers who like their noir with bite, their comedy tinged with sadness, and their protagonists both frustrating and impossible to abandon. If you’re into Michael Connelly but wish Harry Bosch swore more, smoked more weed, and wandered into surreal Hollywood detours, this is your book. I’d hand it to anyone who loves a crime story that doesn’t just solve a case but also lays bare the person doing the solving.
Pages: 245 | ISBN: 979-8-9865319-3-9
Girl Bait
Girl Bait blends historical drama with a gritty present-day thriller. It opens in 1837, Alton, Illinois, where a young boy witnesses the violent death of abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy at the hands of a mob. This harrowing prologue sets a tone of danger and moral conflict that carries into the modern timeline, where paramedics, cops, and shadowy operatives are drawn into a tangled web of crime, exploitation, and survival. The narrative alternates between past and present, linking threads of courage, corruption, and human vulnerability across centuries.
I found the writing to be sharp and visual, with scenes that sometimes feel like a camera panning over raw, unvarnished reality. The pacing swings between fast and methodical, letting you breathe just long enough before the next burst of action. The historical passages have a somber weight to them, and they stick in the mind. The modern storyline is blunt, unapologetic, and often brutal, yet it’s grounded by moments of humanity like small gestures and flashes of conscience that make the darkness hit harder.
At times, the bluntness can be jarring. The violence is graphic, the language is rough, and the moral lines are deliberately blurred. Personally, I appreciated that the book doesn’t sand down the edges. Life in this world, whether in 1837 or in the back alleys of Oakland, isn’t tidy. Still, there were moments where the intensity made me pause, not because it was bad, but because it demanded space to digest. The character work is strong, especially in how Pruitt shows both flaws and virtues without telling you what to think.
Girl Bait is an intense and layered read for those who like their thrillers gritty and their history more than just a backdrop. It will appeal to readers who can handle graphic realism and who value moral complexity over neat resolutions. If you want a book that entertains while leaving you unsettled in all the right ways, this one delivers.
Pages: 345 | ASIN : B0F8H7GGJ6
Shadows of Truth: A Jake Scott Mystery
Barry Finlay’s Shadows of Truth follows Jake Scott, his partner Dani, and her daughter Emilie on what is supposed to be a relaxing Alaskan cruise. But almost from the moment they set sail, the trip takes a darker turn. When a fellow passenger is found dead on the balcony next door, Dani, head of Ottawa’s Homicide Division, can’t shake her suspicion that it was no accident. As the ship glides through breathtaking scenery, Dani quietly investigates, unearthing unsettling connections and running into resistance from the ship’s crew. What begins as a holiday turns into a slow-burning mystery at sea, blending moments of lighthearted travelogue with the tension of an unfolding crime.
I loved how immersive the cruise setting felt. Finlay paints it with vivid detail, from the ship’s bustling dining halls and over-the-top entertainment to the quiet, salty nights on the balcony. The dialogue feels natural. Jake’s dry humor made me grin more than once, and Dani’s calm competence grounded the story. At the same time, I found the pacing deliberately unhurried, which matched the cruise setting. The murder mystery simmers beneath layers of shipboard life, and that contrast works, though it sometimes feels like the crime takes a back seat to the vacation.
What really hooked me was Dani herself. She’s methodical, perceptive, and quietly relentless, even when others want her to let it go. I felt her frustration when leads went cold or when official channels seemed more interested in avoiding bad publicity than finding the truth. Jake, on the other hand, is endearingly out of his element, torn between wanting to support Dani and just wanting to enjoy the trip. Their dynamic felt genuine, equal parts affection, exasperation, and mutual respect. The mystery is clever in how it teases possible motives and suspects without dumping everything at once.
Shadows of Truth is a solid and atmospheric mystery with characters who feel like people you might actually meet on a cruise. It’s perfect for readers who enjoy slower-paced, character-driven mysteries where the setting is as much a part of the story as the plot. If you like your crime fiction laced with travel, humor, and the occasional glass of wine on a moonlit deck, this is a trip worth taking.
Pages: 269 | ASIN : B0FLWN2XCD
Happy Sun Farm: Behind the Facade
Berry comes home from college carrying fresh knowledge and heavy grief. Her father has died, and while mourning, she clings to the belief that her degree in agricultural economics might help turn the struggling family farm into a success. That confidence shatters quickly. The land she expected to inherit has already been sold; her mother signed it away to a corporate behemoth called Sunny Happy Farm. Even more unsettling, Berry discovers that her father had been resisting their advances, a battle he didn’t live to win. Determined to uncover the truth, she begins investigating the company, only to find that every new discovery points to something darker, something calculated. The question isn’t just what Sunny Happy Farm wants, but how far it’s willing to go to get it.
Happy Sunny Farm: Behind the Façade by Deven Greene is a genre-bending tale that wears many disguises. At times, it feels like a Stephen King narrative rooted in small-town unease; at others, it channels John Grisham’s legal-tinged suspense. Instead of feeling scattered, the shifting tones enhance the novel’s energy. Thriller mechanics mix with black comedy, while undercurrents of romance soften the edges. The result is unpredictable; just when you settle into one rhythm, the story pivots, demanding fresh attention.
At the center stands Berry, a heroine both wounded and formidable. Her grief never feels forced; instead, Greene peels back layers of her relationship with her father, making her pain not just visible but palpable. That emotional foundation fuels her fury at a faceless corporation that grows more ruthless with every revelation. Berry’s fight becomes personal for the reader, too, as Sunny Happy Farm emerges less as a caricature of corporate greed and more as a disturbingly believable machine.
Perhaps the novel’s greatest strength lies in that believability. Greene treads into territory that, in lesser hands, might feel exaggerated. Here, it lands with chilling plausibility. The cynicism woven through the plot isn’t sensational; it’s sobering. Readers may want to dismiss some of the book’s implications as extreme, yet Greene makes it impossible. The scenarios echo too closely with reality to ignore.
This is, in every sense, a page-turner. Deven Greene delivers a sharp, multifaceted story, both entertaining and unsettling, carried by a strong feminist voice and anchored by a protagonist worth rooting for. Happy Sunny Farm: Behind the Façade is a bold achievement, one that refuses to be easily categorized, and one that lingers long after the last page is turned.
Pages: 356 | ASIN : B0FGKQ2HSL
The Mist from Beyond
Dorothy and her sorority sisters thought they had the perfect prank in mind: a séance to terrify their newest pledge. The plan was harmless: summon a demon, watch the poor girl panic, then laugh it off. Except this time, the ritual worked. Something monstrous answered their call, and the creature isn’t content with mere fright. It wants chaos, and it intends to bring it.
Enter the FBI’s Occult Strike Team. Lev, Frank, James, and their battle-hardened crew find themselves once again thrust into the front lines of humanity’s strangest war. Their mission: stop a Lovecraftian nightmare from enslaving or annihilating the world. For them, it’s just another day at the office, but one misstep could mean the end of everything.
The Mist from Beyond by R.K. Jack marks the second installment in the Occult Strike Team saga. The novel carries echoes of Stephen King’s Dark Tower and the mythic grotesquerie of Brian Lumley, all while carving out its own distinct territory. The blend is unmistakable: supernatural horror laced with military precision and the grit of a police procedural.
Jack thrives in this terrain. Dialogue crackles, action roars, and set pieces feel cinematic in scale. The narrative hurtles forward with energy, balancing terror with darkly comic beats that arrive when most needed. Without those flashes of humor, the story’s horrors, often described in lavishly gruesome detail, would be almost unbearable.
Make no mistake: this is grim material. The demon the Strike Team faces is nothing less than apocalyptic, and Jack ensures the stakes are clear from page one. The shifting perspectives evoke classic horror techniques, reminiscent of Dracula’s polyphonic storytelling, while the pacing accelerates toward a finale that borders on the sublime.
Graphic, relentless, and often jaw-dropping, The Mist from Beyond is not for the faint of heart. Yet for readers who crave supernatural horror with teeth, monsters that crawl straight from the abyss and heroes who meet them head-on, it delivers in spades. Intense, frightening, and unexpectedly funny, this is a book designed to thrill fans who like their horror bold and uncompromising.
Pages: 314 | ASIN : B0F89FP7FR
A Few Casualties So What
In A Few Casualties So What, Wilson Jackson drops the reader straight into the grit and shadow of Metro City, a place where the Great Meteor has bent time, pulling the ghosts of the Prohibition era into the raw edge of the future. The story follows Chubby Pone, a former hitman turned reluctant problem-solver, navigating gang rivalries, crooked alliances, and his own tangled loyalties. When the children of two crime lords are murdered, Pone is thrust into a dangerous game of diplomacy and survival, caught between warring families, corrupt politics, and a city that seems to breathe violence. Through smoky clubs, high-stakes poker tables, and sudden bursts of gunfire, Jackson blends noir grit with a sharp-tongued wit, crafting a crime saga that is as much about character as it is about bullets.
I enjoyed the texture of Jackson’s world. It isn’t just described, it’s lived in. The details, from the way Pone polishes his bowler hat to the stink of cheap booze in a gangster’s breath, make the city feel like it’s been around for decades before the first chapter starts. I could almost hear the slap of shoes on wet pavement. That said, the prose sometimes lingers in these textures. There were moments I wanted the story to push past the ambiance and get to the meat of the scene. Still, the dialogue crackles. Pone’s banter, especially with Red and his poker buddies, is sharp, often funny, and layered with unspoken history.
The plot itself feels like a pool game. It’s slow, deliberate setups punctuated by sudden, violent breaks. I appreciated that the violence never felt cheap. Even the drive-bys and assassinations have a code, and when that code is broken, the weight of it lingers. Pone is a fascinating protagonist because he’s neither romanticized nor demonized. He’s competent but flawed, dangerous but bound by his own sense of justice. There’s a cynicism here, but also a surprising tenderness in how he treats his chosen family. I found myself caring less about the “whodunit” than about how Pone would navigate the moral knots he’s tied into.
A Few Casualties So What felt less like a crime novel and more like an invitation into a very specific corner of a city. Jackson’s writing is rich, unhurried, and atmospheric, and his characters carry the kind of weight that makes you believe they’re out there somewhere, still playing cards in a smoky basement. This book would be a strong pick for readers who love noir that takes its time, crime stories that don’t flinch from moral complexity, and dialogue that could cut glass.
Pages: 270 | ASIN : B0F4675T6Z
LITERARY TITAN 