The Return of Bonnie and Clyde
Outlaws become patriots, and take on an evil even worse than vampires, in our new thriller series.
Kathleen McFall and I have a new book coming out, and it may seem like a pretty big departure from our popular The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection. The book, Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road (Pumpjack Press), definitely moves away from the occult themes we explored in our first series, but fans will find some clear similarities. Here are five parallel elements, and one big difference:
1) We’re tapping into some familiar archetypes. Instead of cowboys and vampires though, our protagonists are Bonnie and Clyde, infamous outlaws and the closest thing America has to Robin Hood.
2) We’re bringing characters back from the dead. In this case, it’s not because they are vampires, it’s because, at least in our new series, Bonnie and Clyde were saved from their bloody end to serve a secret government agency trying to protect democracy.
3) The evil they face is bigger and even more grotesque than an ancient order of bloodsuckers. It’s greed, and it feeds on humans in a much more insidious way. Right now in this country we love so much, wealth inequality is at the highest level it’s ever been, edging past the gilded age when the robber barons controlled a huge proportion of the wealth. Their greed triggered the Great Depression. The real Bonnie and Clyde, soup lines and Hoovervilles all emerged from the economic rubble of that disaster.
4) Like our other books, Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road is about love, and second chances. The real Bonnie and Clyde were thieves and murderers, regardless of the economic conditions that spawned them, and regardless of how the public romanticized their exploits. In our retelling, they get a second chance and are forced to confront the bad decisions they made along the way. And in the end, it’s their fierce love for each other that helps them navigate the challenges and atone.
5) Despite the heavy themes — greed, atonement, poverty, presidential assassination attempts — there’s plenty of our trademark humor woven throughout: gin and pimento cheese sandwiches, a goon that’s terrible at his job, and a regimented eater in old folks home. There’s no dog though, not yet anyway, so Rex fans will have to re-read the Cowboy and the Vampire series for a dose of canine heroics.
6) Unlike our other books, there is time travel. Well, sort of. The book is pinned to 1984 — a very good year (it’s when I graduated from Whitehall high school!) — when the now elderly Bonnie, known to her neighbors as Brenda Prentiss, shares her story with a dubious local reporter. Most of the action takes place in the 30s though.
After more than a decade skulking through creaky crypts and dilapidated honkytonks, exploring undead palaces of excess and the loneliest stretches of sagebrush-choked high deserts, Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road shifts gears. It delivers all the fun and thrills of The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance, only we’ve traded cowboy hats for fedoras, nervous horses for bullet-riddled Buicks and occult ruminations on the afterlife for a brass knuckle assault on corporate greed.
It’s a lot of fun, with a timely economic message, and we hope fans of our first four books will come along for the ride.
You won’t be disappointed.
Kathleen McFall and I have a new book coming out, and it may seem like a pretty big departure from our popular The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection. The book, Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road (Pumpjack Press), definitely moves away from the occult themes we explored in our first series, but fans will find some clear similarities. Here are five parallel elements, and one big difference:
1) We’re tapping into some familiar archetypes. Instead of cowboys and vampires though, our protagonists are Bonnie and Clyde, infamous outlaws and the closest thing America has to Robin Hood.
2) We’re bringing characters back from the dead. In this case, it’s not because they are vampires, it’s because, at least in our new series, Bonnie and Clyde were saved from their bloody end to serve a secret government agency trying to protect democracy.
3) The evil they face is bigger and even more grotesque than an ancient order of bloodsuckers. It’s greed, and it feeds on humans in a much more insidious way. Right now in this country we love so much, wealth inequality is at the highest level it’s ever been, edging past the gilded age when the robber barons controlled a huge proportion of the wealth. Their greed triggered the Great Depression. The real Bonnie and Clyde, soup lines and Hoovervilles all emerged from the economic rubble of that disaster.
4) Like our other books, Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road is about love, and second chances. The real Bonnie and Clyde were thieves and murderers, regardless of the economic conditions that spawned them, and regardless of how the public romanticized their exploits. In our retelling, they get a second chance and are forced to confront the bad decisions they made along the way. And in the end, it’s their fierce love for each other that helps them navigate the challenges and atone.
5) Despite the heavy themes — greed, atonement, poverty, presidential assassination attempts — there’s plenty of our trademark humor woven throughout: gin and pimento cheese sandwiches, a goon that’s terrible at his job, and a regimented eater in old folks home. There’s no dog though, not yet anyway, so Rex fans will have to re-read the Cowboy and the Vampire series for a dose of canine heroics.
6) Unlike our other books, there is time travel. Well, sort of. The book is pinned to 1984 — a very good year (it’s when I graduated from Whitehall high school!) — when the now elderly Bonnie, known to her neighbors as Brenda Prentiss, shares her story with a dubious local reporter. Most of the action takes place in the 30s though.
After more than a decade skulking through creaky crypts and dilapidated honkytonks, exploring undead palaces of excess and the loneliest stretches of sagebrush-choked high deserts, Bonnie and Clyde: Resurrection Road shifts gears. It delivers all the fun and thrills of The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance, only we’ve traded cowboy hats for fedoras, nervous horses for bullet-riddled Buicks and occult ruminations on the afterlife for a brass knuckle assault on corporate greed.
It’s a lot of fun, with a timely economic message, and we hope fans of our first four books will come along for the ride.
You won’t be disappointed.
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