About the Book
Inspired by the debut album from legendary rock star Meat Loaf, Bat Out of Hell is a stellar collection of mysteries from some of the best writers in the genre.
The fourth installment in the Music and Murder Mystery series, edited by Don Bruns, Bat Out of Hell is a nonstop thrill ride of engrossing mysteries from some of the best authors in the business. An anthology unlike any other, this collection includes a brand-new Jack Reacher story from Andrew Child, a never-before-seen Pignon Scorbion prequel from Rick Bleiweiss, as well as exciting new mysteries from Heather Graham, Don Bruns, John Gilstrap, Dave Bruns, C. J. Kudlacz, and Charles Todd.
Whether you are familiar with the series or encountering it for the first time, Bat Out of Hell has something for everyone.
About the Author :
Don Bruns is an ad executive and a USA Today bestselling author. As a former road musician, he performed with Ricky Nelson, the Four Seasons, Ray Charles, and others. Bruns has authored seventeen published novels including the Quentin Archer Mystery series. Casting Bones has been optioned for a motion picture by Nine Ton Entertainment. He makes his home in Southern Florida.
Don Bruns is an ad executive and a USA Today bestselling author. As a former road musician, he performed with Ricky Nelson, the Four Seasons, Ray Charles, and others. Bruns has authored seventeen published novels including the Quentin Archer Mystery series. Casting Bones has been optioned for a motion picture by Nine Ton Entertainment. He makes his home in Southern Florida.
Don Bruns is an ad executive and a USA Today bestselling author. As a former road musician, he performed with Ricky Nelson, the Four Seasons, Ray Charles, and others. Bruns has authored seventeen published novels including the Quentin Archer Mystery series. Casting Bones has been optioned for a motion picture by Nine Ton Entertainment. He makes his home in Southern Florida.
Don Bruns is an ad executive and a USA Today bestselling author. As a former road musician, he performed with Ricky Nelson, the Four Seasons, Ray Charles, and others. Bruns has authored seventeen published novels including the Quentin Archer Mystery series. Casting Bones has been optioned for a motion picture by Nine Ton Entertainment. He makes his home in Southern Florida.
Andrew Child was born in Birmingham, England, in May 1968. He went to school in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, and later attended the University of Sheffield where he studied English literature and drama. After graduation, Andrew set up and ran a small independent theater company which showcased a range of original material to local, regional, and national audiences. Following a critically successful but financially challenging appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Andrew moved into the telecommunications industry as a "temporary" solution to a short-term cash crisis. Fifteen years later, after carrying out a variety of roles including several which were covered by the UK's Official Secrets Act, Andrew became the victim/beneficiary of a widespread redundancy program. Freed once again from the straitjacket of corporate life, he took the opportunity to answer the question, what if?
Rick Bleiweiss has been a successful musician, songwriter, music producer, and record company executive. He has worked as a social activist and journalist and is currently a publishing executive. His novel Pignon Scorbion & the Barbershop Detectives was selected as an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense, as well as being chosen as one of the year's Best New Debut Mystery Novels by Publishers Weekly. Rick lives in Gig Harbor, Washington, and is at work on his next Pignon Scorbion novel. Follow him and Scorbion at RickBleiweiss.com.
Dave Bruns took advantage of the COVID pandemic to begin a second career as a writer. Thirty-six years spent working in child welfare prepared him for a walk of life as a storyteller. His clients included drug dealers, smugglers, and murderers, and his Carl Boyd series reflects that experience. Bruns lives in Toledo, Ohio, with his wife, LouAnn Frey, and an obnoxious Portuguese Water Dog named Roscoe. Rule Number Four, Bruns's debut novel, was published in the summer of 2024.
When John Gilstrap's first novel, Nathan's Run, hit the market in 1996, it set the literary world on fire. Publication rights sold in twenty-three countries, the movie rights were scooped up at auction by Warner Brothers, and John changed professions. A safety engineer by training and education, he specialized in explosives and hazardous materials, and also served fifteen years in the fire and rescue service, rising to the rank of lieutenant. That "first" book was really his fourth, and that one call from an agent (after logging twenty-seven rejections) changed the trajectory of his life. Twenty books and seven movie projects later, it's been a good run, and it's still running. Outside of his writing life, John is a renowned safety expert with extensive knowledge of explosives, hazardous materials, and fire behavior. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.
A third-generation military kid, fiction author C. J. Kudlacz grew up all over the USA and strives to incorporate this atypical perspective and sense of place into his characters and settings. He has worked as a bartender, a stage and voice-over actor, and has traveled the world flying jets for both military and civilian organizations--all outstanding ways to find and tell stories. A 1997 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, he also has an MA from the University of Oklahoma and is a twenty-five-year Air Force veteran. He lives in Utah.
Charles Todd is a pen name used by the American authors Caroline (1934-2021) and Charles Todd, a mother-and-son writing team who write the Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries and the Bess Crawford mysteries, as well as stand-alone novels. Their novel Proof of Guilt was a New York Times bestseller, and A Test of Wills was named one of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association's 100 favorite mysteries of the 20th Century and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year selection. Their novels have won the Agatha Award, the Barry Award, and the Anthony Award, as well as being finalists for several other awards. Charles is continuing the series.
Heather Graham, a USA Today bestselling author, has written more than a hundred novels. She has been awarded the Thriller Writers' Silver Bullet Award, the Thriller Master Award, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Strand Magazine and from Romance Writers of America. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers, Horror Writers Association, RWA, and Mystery Writers of America.
Nightfire is the new horror imprint from Tor. For more information visit www.tornightfire.com. Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.
Since iTunes named his as one of the top podcasts of 2007, BJ Harrison has continued to wow audiences with his voicing skills. Now, over 475 audiobooks later, he still impresses critics and listeners alike. From eldritch witches to young ingenues, from marble mouthed gangsters to Shakespearean Danes, BJ has an astounding array of character voices, dialects, and accents at his fingertips, coupled with an impressive depth of interpretation. Bradford Hastings is a voice talent and audiobook narrator.
John Pirhalla is award-winning audiobook narrator who has recorded over 300 titles. An Audie and Independent Audiobook Awards finalist, he has won a Reader's Favorite Award, an Adrenaline Award, a OneVoice Award, and an Indie Ink Award. Whether it's science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, or thrillers, he enjoys narrating books with lots of characters, voices, and accents. James Fouhey is an actor and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator living in New York City. He received classical training at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. He has recorded more than 150 audiobooks across a variety of genres, including science fiction, romance, young adult fiction, and children's fiction.
Liam Gerrard is an award-winning voice artist with over fifteen years of experience working in every field of the voice industry, as well as a highly acclaimed stage and screen actor. A 2017 Audie Award nominee, he has narrated numerous audiobooks in a wide range of genres and styles.
Roger Wayne served in the Air Force as a radio and television broadcast journalist in South Korea and won several awards before obtaining a BA degree in communications and journalism. He is an actor living in New York, narrating audiobooks, working on independent film projects, performing off Broadway, and auditioning for major network shows.
Review :
"[Andrew] Child's story is a draw for fans, but it's not the only standout in this collection...Readers will be captivated by how these strong stories epitomize the themes of Meat Loaf's music."
-- "South Florida Sun Sentinel"
"A nonstop, engrossing mystery seesaw...A must-read for thriller devotees and longtime fans of the Reacher series--especially those craving tight plots and righteous action."
-- "Rome (GA) News-Tribune"
"A stellar collection of stories by some of the biggest names in the writing world today."
-- "Red Carpet Crash"
"We always pegged Reacher as more of a blues guy, but hey, he doesn't need to appreciate Bat Out of Hell to enact it on some fools dumb enough to go up against him. Good times...Expect pummeling."
-- "Bleeding Cool"
"We suggest you grab a copy before it's gone, gone, gone!"
-- "Crime Fiction Lover"
"A new anthology of short mystery stories by a variety of authors...and yes, it's inspired by the song of the same name by rock legend Meat Loaf...The title story, "Bat Out of Hell," is written by Andrew Child and is an official stand-alone Jack Reacher story!"
-- "Men's Journal"
"Brilliant! As a lover of music and a lover of top-notch short-form fiction, I was in heaven reading the wonderful stories in this anthology. Word of warning: Set aside some time. Once you start, you won't want to stop until you get to the very last page! Bravo!"
-- "Jeffery Deaver, author of the Colter Shaw series, the basis for CBS's hit TV show Tracker"
