Showing results for "Tim Moore" in Crime Fiction

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

Dr. Caleb Maddox is a crack San Francisco toxicologist leading a groundbreaking study of the human pain threshold based on minute analysis of chemical markers. He has also just broken up with his artist girlfriend after she discovered a shocking family secret in his past. Seeking solace, Caleb finds a dark, old-fashioned saloon called House of Shields and is mesmerised when a beautiful woman materialises out of the shadows, dressed like a 1940s movie star.

It's after midnight, and SFPD homicide inspector Gavin Cain is standing by a grave in the El Carmelo Cemetery when he gets the call. Cain knows there's something bad in the coffin they're about to exhume. He just doesn't know what. Only that it made a dying man certain he was going to hell. But now a chopper is on its way to take Cain to city hall on the mayor's orders, and after 30 years in the ground, the mystery of Christopher Hanley's coffin will have to wait a little longer. In its place, Mayor Castelli lays out the pieces of a different but equally disturbing puzzle.