by J Malcolm Stewart:
At Shady Palms Motel, those who are unlucky enough to become guests are treated to the worst that San Diego has to offer. Dirty deeds, shifty characters and murderous intentions abound. And that’s just the hotel’s staff… Take the owner Sanjay, who supplements the motel’s income by broadcasting his guests intimate doings over the internet. Or Candy, a hard-time hooker whose heart is anything but gold.
Few know the truth about what is happening at what has to be America’s worst hospitality establishment. That is until a terrorist plot to construct a dirty bomb unleashes an even greater terror on the unsuspecting populace of America’s most temperate city.
Allen Dusk’s Shady Palms will have you spraying your walls with Lysol and checking underneath your bed for some of the most disgusting creatures ever conceived in a horror novel (some of them are even people!). If you’re looking for a clichéd supernatural romance where the heroes find true love in the end, be prepared to look elsewhere. Equal parts noir slice of life and over-the-top gross-out fest, Dusk weaves a compelling web of underworld characters who ultimately confront a bizarre mutant menace cut from the same exploitation cloth as classics like Them! or The Toxic Avenger.
His tongue-punched-through-cheek take on sexual violence, pornography culture and doughnut eating federal agents does at times lapse out of parody and into sensationalism . And perhaps a little too much of the novel’s page count is devoted to characters whose only purpose is to die with increasing levels of super-grossness. But if you’re the kind of person who thinks The Hellbound Heart was too sentimental and believes Dead Alive is better than Citizen Kane, you’ve found a kindred soul in Allen. Taken as the less-than-serious romp it seems it was intended to be, you’ll find the right amount of laughs and a ton of ick.
Shady Palms will be released in October 2012 in Paperback ($14.99) and eBook ($4.99). It will be available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Smashwords, and select retailers around the world.
J. Malcolm Stewart is a Northern California-based public relations/marketing professional. He holds degrees in Political Science and Comparative Religion, but can have a conversation someone without starting a small war. Long interested in suspense, thrillers and horror, he writes and reviews on the subject for websites far and wide. When he’s not writing, reviewing or reading, you can find J. Malcolm riding around Northern CA with something radioactive in his trunk.
Follow J. Malcolm on Twitter: @sabbathsoldier, and learn more about him at http://about.me/jaymal.
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