Search Results for: dirty-work

Callie Delgado always puts family first, and unfortunately her brother knows it. She’s emptied her savings, lost work, and spilled countless tears trying to keep him out of trouble, but now he’s in deeper than ever, and his debt is on Callie’s head. She’s given a choice: do some dirty work for the mob, or have her brother returned to her in tiny pieces.

Renting souls is big business for the religious population of Gem City. Those looking to take part in immoral-or even illegal-activity can borrow someone else’s soul, for a price, and sin without consequence.

To save her brother, Callie needs a borrowed soul, but she doesn’t have anywhere near the money to pay for it. The slimy Soul Charmer is willing to barter, but accepting his offer will force Callie into a dangerous world of magic she isn’t ready for.

With the help of the guarded but undeniably attractive Derek-whose allegiance to the Charmer wavers as his connection to Callie grows-she’ll have to walk a tight line, avoid pissing off the bad guys, all while struggling to determine what her loyalty to her family’s really worth.

Losing her brother isn’t an option. Losing her soul? Maybe.

Throckmorton P. Ruddygore, master wizard, had troubles again – but this time, they were partly of his own making. He’d finally beaten the Dark Baron, stripped him of all magical power, and exiled him from Husaquahr to Earth. But he hadn’t counted on the Baron’s using a computer there to create even more effective spells.
Of course, the Baron couldn’t use those spells. But the forces of Hell soon sent him a second-rank wizard who could – and a demon in the cellar to amplify the spells’ power. And now the Baron was developing a scheme which would surely result in Armageddon before its time!
So once again Marge the fairy and Joe the barbarian were called on to do the dirty work. They had to return to their home world and somehow stop the Baron – if they could…

In the twenty-first-century Kingdom of Versailles, the roads are terrible and Paris is a dirty little town. Serfdom and slavery are both common, and no one thinks that’s wrong. Why should they? Most people spend their lives doing backbreaking farm work anyway.

But teenaged Khadija, daughter of a prosperous family of Moorish business travellers, is unfazed. That’s because Khadija is really Annette Klein from twenty-first-century California. Now it’s time for Annette and her family to return to California for the start of another school year, so they begin a journey to the hidden crosstime portal in Marseilles.

As they cross the Pyrenees, bandits attack. When Annette/Khadija comes to, she’s a captive in a caravan of slaves being taken to the markets in the south. Worse, her purchasers take her to an unofficial crosstime portal, a thing hitherto unknown . . . leaving open the question of whether Crosstime Traffic will ever be able to recover her!

When four friends stumble across the body of a fellow club member during a game of golf they suspect murder. The police aren’t so sure, and when it looks as though the official verdict will be suicide the men are outraged. Convinced that there had been ‘dirty work’ and that ‘the police aren’t very good at following up clues’, they undertake their own investigation.

A classic Golden Age whodunit that involves the reader in a charming game of detection as the protagonists use Sherlockian methods to unravel the mystery.

Dirty Work? In a manner of speaking, perhaps, but certainly not along the lines of de Sade or Henry Miller.

“Dirty” maybe because within this remarkable volume of short stories (a follow-up to her award-winning collection Patterns) author Pat Cadigan unflinchingly explores the implications of technology on modern and near-future societies, humorously challenges our perceptions of reality, and chillingly strips away our civilized facades to confront the bestial nature of our souls.

With stories like “Home By the Sea,” “Dispatches from the Revolution,” “No Prisoners,” “50 Ways to Improve Your Orgasm,” and “Naming Names,” Pat Cadigan exhibits an enviable ability to tackle a variety of themes, moods, and perspectives. And makes it all seem easy.

Featuring 18 stunning fictions (including the previously unpublished “Lost Girls” written especially for this book)-as well as intriguing author introduction to each story-Dirty Work is a thought provoking, often funny, never compromising collection by one of America’s most gifted authors.

It doesn’t get any better than this.