Author Description

<p>Tommy Shakes is a career criminal, and not a very good one. He earned his name as a heroin addict. Now he's just a drunk, drinking so much that he spends much of his time in bathrooms, exploding from one end or the other.<br> <br> He's in a marriage he wants to salvage. He convinces himself that his wife will stay with him if he can bring home enough money. She tells him that won't do it, but Tommy gets a crack at a big heist and decides to pull the job.<br> <br> The job is ripping off a popular restaurant that runs an illegal sports book in back. When it turns out that one of the security guys works for a local gangster, Joey Lee, Tommy figures there's enough money that it's worth the risk.<br> <br> They pull the robbery but one member of Tommy's crew gets gun happy and it turns into a bloodbath, which includes killing Lee's man. Now they're wanted for murder, and the law is the least of their problems.<br> <br> Praise for TOMMY SHAKES: <br> <br> "With his pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, his knack for crisp pacing, and his unerring eye for what might be called the milieu of functional dissolution, Rob Pierce has revealed himself in story after story as a poet of the luckless, the bard of the misbegotten. In the hero of his latest and best, Tommy Shakes, he has found his Frankie Machine." --David Corbett, award-winning author of The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday<br> <br> "Tight as a drum, vicious as a pitbull. I don't remember the last time I read something that scratched the scuzzy itch of noir as well as Tommy Shakes. Just, maybe don't read it with a full stomach." --Rob Hart, author of the Ash McKenna series<br> <br> "When you pick up Tommy Shakes, make sure you have nothing to do, because you're not going to want to put this one down. Rob Pierce at the tip-top of his game. Watch out, y'all." --Eryk Pruitt, author of What We Reckon<br> <br> "When I was in rehab, a psyche ward in Boston, I read the book Crime Novels: American Noir of the '50s. Willefor