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THUGLIT Issue 7
Adjust your jockstraps and tighten your panties, Thugketeers—because another issue of THUGLIT is here with eight fresh stories that'll kick you right in the literary cojones…or whatever the Spanish word is for lady parts that wouldn't enjoy a kicking—literary or otherwise.
You get my point.
What you WILL enjoy, however, is the best damned crime fiction mag on the freakin' planet—IT'S THUGLIT, BABY!!!
MOUTHBREATHER by Joe Clifford
PEGLEG by Ed Kurtz
THE LAST JOB by Justin Ordoñez
TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN by Christopher E. Long
CINDERS by Marie S. Crosswell
QUIET DELL, 1914 by Benjamin Welton
THE NEIGHBOR'S DOG by Edward Hagelstein
CHUM by Michael Sears
You get my point.
What you WILL enjoy, however, is the best damned crime fiction mag on the freakin' planet—IT'S THUGLIT, BABY!!!
MOUTHBREATHER by Joe Clifford
PEGLEG by Ed Kurtz
THE LAST JOB by Justin Ordoñez
TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN by Christopher E. Long
CINDERS by Marie S. Crosswell
QUIET DELL, 1914 by Benjamin Welton
THE NEIGHBOR'S DOG by Edward Hagelstein
CHUM by Michael Sears
- GenresCrimeShort StoriesNoir
144 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 30, 2013
18 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 9, 2019
Thuglit has a problem. It's first six collections have been so bloody good that anything new can't possibly match the earlier volumes, but, yeah, they somehow managed to find another great big wheelbarrow full of talent out there. Mouth Breather by joe Clifford starts out the hit parade. Typical of Clifford's writing style, this story has an easy feel that immediately captures the reader and doesn't let go till you reach the end. Slim grew up in a trailer park with Kim, who just happens to be a blonde bombshell. He's always been there for her and gotten her out of one jam after another. His wife isn't too happy about it and maybe, just maybe, the wife's right. The second story in this collection is Pegleg by Ed Kurtz, another newer voice in the modern crime fiction universe. I'm not sure if I've ever read his work before, but clearly his work merits a closer look. It's a tale of the criminal types, trashy trailer park criminal types. Kurtz has the lingo down pat. This is how people talk. In this story, the narrator is shooting the breeze with a buddy and it turns out his buddy wants to do a smash and grab on the meanest dude in town. Our third selection is The Last Job by Justin Ordonez. It is a quick moving story about software espionage. It's easy reading, but nothing special. The fourth selection in Thuglit 7 is Two Sides of the Same Coin by Christopher E. Long. This is a short tale about recovering from addiction and the author perfectly captures the despair and paranoia. It does end a little antiproton though. The fifth story is Cinders by Marie Crosswell. Wow. Good stuff. Opens with Mitch chasing Ruby Jean out to a vacant lot and beating her senseless with a billy club before shooting her in the face. The things you do in the name of brotherly love. Quiet Dell 1914 by Benjamin Welton is selection six and is told in an old fashioned voice reminiscent of small towns and baseball and picnics. Don't be mislead, baseball and apple pie are not the main dish. The Neighbor's Dog by Ed hagelstein is story no 7 and its a different kind of story. A man with a jealous and violent wife notices that his new neighbor is young, hot, and parades around in Daisy Dukes. Naturally, he's got to do something about this situation. Darkly humorous. Chum by Michael Sears is next. It's a simple fishing story about a guy who rents a charter off Montauk. Or is it?
September 30, 2017
"Pegleg" by Ed Kurtz and "Chum" by Michael Sears I thought were great stories. The rest were not really to my taste.
December 16, 2025
More great stories and writing from Thuglit.
April 21, 2021
Pretty good. Longer stories in this edition than previous ones.
December 11, 2013
Reviewing collections and anthologies can be tricky due to the nature of the short stories involved. One does not want to say too much and ruin the reads. Such is the case here with Thuglit: Issue 7 where the reading is once again very good.
Kim wasn’t really obtainable in “Mouthbreather” by Joe Gifford. The man known as “Slim” has always been at her beck and call since they grew up together in different trailers in “Copperhead Canyon. A bond that even his wife Rene doesn’t understand will cause him late one night to once again come to her aid.
Poke had a plan and true to form like everything Poke did, the plan was crazy bad. “Pegleg” by Ed Kurtz points out in detail just how crazy bad an idea it was.
Corporate theft and espionage are just a couple of things at work in “The Last Job” by Justin Ordonez. It takes skill to steal from major corporations and this particular thief is good at it. But, skill isn’t everything.
Chad wanted out of the drugs and more in “Two Sides of the Same Coin” by Christopher E. Long. While he wants out, his girlfriend Jen wants totally into his life. A trip to Vegas and their very lives is at stake.
Mitch has got his gun and his club and is going to chase down Ruby Jean. Nobody is ever going to come into his house and hurt his brother. She and others will learn hard lessons in “Cinders” by Marie S. Crosswell.
Sid Hartsell can really throw it and the other boys in Harrison County can’t handle his pitches. In “Quiet Dell, 1914” by Benjamin Welton at the beginning there isn’t much known about Sid. Reporter Thaddeus O’Connor knows the real story, most of it anyway, and is glad to tell you what happened that horrendously hot summer of 1914.
Considering the nature of his wife’s behavior, he has to be careful when he talks to the new young neighbor. She has two dogs and that might be a conversation starter in “The Neighbor’s Dog” by Edward Hagelstein. Mira seems worth getting to know for a variety of reasons, but, he should be thinking how much in common he has with the dog.
He just wants to go catch a shark in “Chum” by Michael Sears. It has been a bad day and he just wants a shark if the guy in the bar will just accept his money and cooperate.
As in previous issues in this series, the eight stories here are about dark deeds. Crime stories full of people often at the edge doing desperate things because of fate and/or personal stupidity. Each tale pulls you in and slaps you around awhile before you are drop kicked from behind into the arms of the next author. Simply good stuff that will remind you again that humanity is about as bad as you think it is most days.
Thuglit: Issue 7
Edited by Todd Robinson
Thuglit Publishing
http://www.thuglit.com
August 2013
ASIN: B00EWS12L2
E-book (also available in print)
144 Pages
$0.99
Material obtained by purchase using funds in my Amazon Associates account for an objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2013
Kim wasn’t really obtainable in “Mouthbreather” by Joe Gifford. The man known as “Slim” has always been at her beck and call since they grew up together in different trailers in “Copperhead Canyon. A bond that even his wife Rene doesn’t understand will cause him late one night to once again come to her aid.
Poke had a plan and true to form like everything Poke did, the plan was crazy bad. “Pegleg” by Ed Kurtz points out in detail just how crazy bad an idea it was.
Corporate theft and espionage are just a couple of things at work in “The Last Job” by Justin Ordonez. It takes skill to steal from major corporations and this particular thief is good at it. But, skill isn’t everything.
Chad wanted out of the drugs and more in “Two Sides of the Same Coin” by Christopher E. Long. While he wants out, his girlfriend Jen wants totally into his life. A trip to Vegas and their very lives is at stake.
Mitch has got his gun and his club and is going to chase down Ruby Jean. Nobody is ever going to come into his house and hurt his brother. She and others will learn hard lessons in “Cinders” by Marie S. Crosswell.
Sid Hartsell can really throw it and the other boys in Harrison County can’t handle his pitches. In “Quiet Dell, 1914” by Benjamin Welton at the beginning there isn’t much known about Sid. Reporter Thaddeus O’Connor knows the real story, most of it anyway, and is glad to tell you what happened that horrendously hot summer of 1914.
Considering the nature of his wife’s behavior, he has to be careful when he talks to the new young neighbor. She has two dogs and that might be a conversation starter in “The Neighbor’s Dog” by Edward Hagelstein. Mira seems worth getting to know for a variety of reasons, but, he should be thinking how much in common he has with the dog.
He just wants to go catch a shark in “Chum” by Michael Sears. It has been a bad day and he just wants a shark if the guy in the bar will just accept his money and cooperate.
As in previous issues in this series, the eight stories here are about dark deeds. Crime stories full of people often at the edge doing desperate things because of fate and/or personal stupidity. Each tale pulls you in and slaps you around awhile before you are drop kicked from behind into the arms of the next author. Simply good stuff that will remind you again that humanity is about as bad as you think it is most days.
Thuglit: Issue 7
Edited by Todd Robinson
Thuglit Publishing
http://www.thuglit.com
August 2013
ASIN: B00EWS12L2
E-book (also available in print)
144 Pages
$0.99
Material obtained by purchase using funds in my Amazon Associates account for an objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2013
October 29, 2013
What prompted me to drop the buck on the Kindle Store for this noir magazine was the name Ed Kurtz, whose story "Peg Leg" appears in its pages. Ed's on fire in 2013, as far as delivering damned good stories goes, and I figured a buck was a steal for this ebook, not to mention an excuse to check out some authors whose work I'd be reading for the very first time.
"Peg Leg" is a heist story, or more specifically a botched heist story. The protagonist, a somewhat dimwitted crook, gets roped in by his friend Poke to do a job together for the first time. Risky, sure, but when the target is local heavy, Porky Valentine, it might be downright suicidal. But Porky has a lot of money ripe for the taking, and presumably it should be easy since there's no safe involved--the money is stashed in Porky's wooden leg. This was just a funny-as-hell story in just how well in shows the mindset of a desperate crook talking himself into a job that he is ill-equipped to pull off. Worth my buck, right there.
Then I moved on to the other stories in the book. Glad I did too, because I found a couple other gems.
"The Neighbor's Dog" by Edward Hagelstein has Huck a browbeaten husband reminiscing about his insanely jealous wife, Betty, and the gorgeous neighbor he met after her two dogs took a dump in his backyard. Well, to be more accurate, one dog did the dead, the other ate it up. Yeck. Anyway, Hagelstein's humor comes through loud and clear through the dialogue in this story, which sees Huck setting himself up for a very bad scene with his wife if she finds out about his fascination with the gal next door. And, oh boy, is that a bad scene by the end of the story comes around.
"Cinders" by Marie S. Crosswell is a very dark, very emotional revenge tale, due in part to the fact that there is revenge sought on two counts. Mitch chases down a woman named Ruby Jean through the woods behind his place and kills her. Why? Because he walked into the house to find her standing over his beaten and bloodied brother, Cole, about to kill him. The murder is vicious, but you get the tragic, unconditional bond between the two brothers. But despite the measures Mitch takes to sweep the crime under the rug, Ruby Jean's estranged husband, Bud, comes to town looking for her. And that leads to the second act of revenge. Oh, man, this was just grim, gritty stuff all the way around. While hard to find someone in the story to root for, it was a suspenseful read, to be sure.
Throw in stories by Joe Clifford, Christopher E. Long, Michael Sears, Benjamin Welton, Justin Ordonez and Thuglit 7 was a hard-as-nails collection of some writers I need to remember down the line when I'm seeking out some up-and-coming crime fiction.
"Peg Leg" is a heist story, or more specifically a botched heist story. The protagonist, a somewhat dimwitted crook, gets roped in by his friend Poke to do a job together for the first time. Risky, sure, but when the target is local heavy, Porky Valentine, it might be downright suicidal. But Porky has a lot of money ripe for the taking, and presumably it should be easy since there's no safe involved--the money is stashed in Porky's wooden leg. This was just a funny-as-hell story in just how well in shows the mindset of a desperate crook talking himself into a job that he is ill-equipped to pull off. Worth my buck, right there.
Then I moved on to the other stories in the book. Glad I did too, because I found a couple other gems.
"The Neighbor's Dog" by Edward Hagelstein has Huck a browbeaten husband reminiscing about his insanely jealous wife, Betty, and the gorgeous neighbor he met after her two dogs took a dump in his backyard. Well, to be more accurate, one dog did the dead, the other ate it up. Yeck. Anyway, Hagelstein's humor comes through loud and clear through the dialogue in this story, which sees Huck setting himself up for a very bad scene with his wife if she finds out about his fascination with the gal next door. And, oh boy, is that a bad scene by the end of the story comes around.
"Cinders" by Marie S. Crosswell is a very dark, very emotional revenge tale, due in part to the fact that there is revenge sought on two counts. Mitch chases down a woman named Ruby Jean through the woods behind his place and kills her. Why? Because he walked into the house to find her standing over his beaten and bloodied brother, Cole, about to kill him. The murder is vicious, but you get the tragic, unconditional bond between the two brothers. But despite the measures Mitch takes to sweep the crime under the rug, Ruby Jean's estranged husband, Bud, comes to town looking for her. And that leads to the second act of revenge. Oh, man, this was just grim, gritty stuff all the way around. While hard to find someone in the story to root for, it was a suspenseful read, to be sure.
Throw in stories by Joe Clifford, Christopher E. Long, Michael Sears, Benjamin Welton, Justin Ordonez and Thuglit 7 was a hard-as-nails collection of some writers I need to remember down the line when I'm seeking out some up-and-coming crime fiction.
November 6, 2013
My second issue of THUGLIT and I have to say it was not as good as the first one I read (Issue 5). I first came across this series by accident while fumbling around on my Kindle and I'm glad I did. Each issue is only 99 cents and it gives a good introduction to lesser known crime fiction writers of today. As the name indicates, these characters are all thugs in one sense or another. There are no good guys with exemplary morals in these stories.
September 14, 2013
Another sampling of crime stories. Don't expect an good guys in white hats. Other than a few innocent bystanders or a narrator or two, even the likeable characters are pretty much worthless scum!
Good read!
Good read!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews