William Cook

In researching my new novel, 'Blood Related,' I started out with a mission to read the majority of first person accounts of serial homicide, stream of consciousness-style fiction. Not for material, more for inspiration and admiration - just like those crazy books, quite glad my tastes are slowly shifting to a more classical appreciation of the dark arts! Not a soft option by any means! Here is my list. 1. Killer on The Road by James Ellroy 2. A Special Place: the heart of a dark matter by Peter Straub 3. The Killer by Colin Wilson 4. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite 5. Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates 6. The Girls he Adored by Jonathan Nasaw 7. Head Hunter by Michael Slade 8. Stray Bullets (series) by David Lapham 9. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson 10. I AM Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver) by Dan Wells 11. Frenzy by Rex Miller 12. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks 13. American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis 14. Slob by Rex Miller 15. Psycho by...

'Monkey Love' by John Paul Allen, Cover Art by Keith Minnion This is the first work of John Paul Allen's that I have had the pleasure to read but certainly won't be the last. i liked it so much that i read it twice. My first reading of 'Monkey Love' revealed a dark, ironic sense of humor that had me in stitches, building the pathos in this unique work until i thought i knew what 'kind' of novel it was, only to flip my notions upside down with surprise after surprise.  This great little book is laced with cultural references and metaphor that take on a new life afforded by the foresight of a well-deserved second reading. This is a well-crafted story centered on a tragic situation and the pursuit of a love that knows no bounds.  As the title suggests and the exceptional cover art, the quest for love through tragedy is fraught with the horror of new and bizarre discoveries of the self and the surrounding world. Other reviewers have mentioned the basic ...