Excerpt – The Great Dick by Barry Maher
Synopsis
Wickedly funny dark humor horror novel that blends supernatural horror with a thrilling murder mystery.
It’s 1982. Steve Witowski, a failed songwriter on the run from the law, finds himself caught in a supernatural thriller after an apparently innocent act of heroism—saving a woman from a vicious assault by a seemingly unstoppable wino. The woman, Victoria, is just part of a mystery Steve can’t unravel. Even as he’s looting the decomposing dead for the secrets of a self-proclaimed sorcerer. Even as he plummets into a nightmare of fire and blood and murder. Even then, Steve remains certain the sorcerer’s spells, the occult rituals—the supposed demons and supernatural horror—are simply delusion and fantasy. Steve is wrong.
Victoria, who has just bought a dilapidated church with a haunting past, entangles Steve in a deadly game of dark magic and rituals. As, unknown to him, the demon grows desperate, Steve plunges deeper into a world of crypts, grave robbing, and long-forgotten secrets, all while trying to escape his own haunted past. But when the face of the man Steve killed appears on his arm, the line between reality and nightmare begins to blur.
This supernatural novel will leave you on the edge of your seat, with wickedly funny dark humor and, ultimately, pulse-pounding suspense, as Steve and Victoria navigate a twisted adventure full of occult horror, supernatural suspense, and shocking revelations.
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Praise
“What a page turner! Witty, literate, scary, sexy, and powerfully evocative of Southern California trying to leave the Sixties behind. I can’t wait to read his next novel. Barry Maher is a brilliant new talent.” – Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins and Masquerade.
“Powerful sexual tension . . . wry self-knowing humor… and a pitch-perfect evocation of an era—[the] classic you always wanted to read, a witches’ brew of sexual tension, metaphysical speculation, lurid crime, tabloid scandal, and black magic, all served up with sly wit and some unexpected grace notes. And yes, it’s called The Great Dick, so it’s got that going for it, too.” – Michael Prescott, New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow Hunter.
“I love the writing! Incredibly readable—the pages just fly by—and hands-down the most unique tale I’ve read in years.” – Lisa Black, New York Times bestselling author of Every Kind of Wicked
Excerpt
SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 1982
Two Women and One Corpse
“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to lie well.”
—Samuel Johnson
CHAPTER 1
Okay, let me start out by admitting that I was an asshole. I know that. The ludicrous amount of fame and acclaim and money I’ve had dumped on me since that time only makes it more glaring. The fact that we lived in a different world back in 1982 is no excuse. It was the same world. It just wasn’t the world we thought it was.
I remember it was a Sunday night. Sundays always feel different. Looking back now and Googling a 1982 calendar, I’d guess it was Sunday, March 21st. I remember waking up and within minutes making the decision to leave. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I eased myself out of the rickety hide‑a‑bed.
Immediately, Maria rolled over into the spot I’d just vacated, breathing loudly through her nose and mouth, not quite snoring. I hate to say it, but she looked every minute of her thirty years. Her thick dark hair clung damply to her face; her heavy arms stretched outward. The cast on her left wrist looked like a giant manacle.
The grandfather clock beside the cigar store Indian read 1:37, though a few minutes before, it had chimed four times. That made as much sense as anything else in my life.
About the Author
Barry Maher may be the only horror novelist who’s ever appeared in the pages of Funeral Service Insider. In his misspent youth, his articles were featured in perhaps a hundred different publications, and, in order to eat, he held nearly that many different jobs. Sometimes he lived on the beach. Not in a house on the beach. On the beach. With the sand and the seagulls.
After a sentence with a Fortune 100 company, he started speaking professionally. He told stories to audiences across the country and around the world: his client list a Who’s Who of multi-national corporations and large associations. You may have seen Barry on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CBS or CNBC, or read his Slightly Off-Kilter syndicated newspaper column.
On the downside, he’s actually been incarcerated twice. Once for not making a left-hand turn out of a left-hand turn lane, and once for aiding and abetting a loiterer. He’s deeply repentant.
A while back, Barry lost the ability to tell time, courtesy of a baseball-sized, cancerous brain tumor. He awoke from having his skull cut open without the tumor, but with the story of The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon.
