I Smell Blood

What the critics are saying:"Disturbing. Nightmarish. Terrifying. And above all original. Ralph Robert Moore's new collection is unlike anything else I've read all year. All decade." AJ Kirby "...one of the best collections I've read this year, delivering exactly the kind of uncompromising thrills and spills I've come to expect from this writer." Peter Tennant "A highly recommended book." Mario Guslandi "...these stories are far from predictable...Moore's work is consistently fascinating, original and devastating. His characters speak to you from whatever hell they inhabit, with clear, unambiguous voices." Trevor Denyer I Smell Blood features 8 short stories and a 45,000 word novel.Cory ventures into the forest behind his cul-de-sac to search for a little girl who wanders through the woods holding a white stone she thinks is her doll's head.Harry and Sarah, honeymooning in the islands, climb a nearby hill so Sarah can relieve herself, at which point they hear a heavy thumping behind the bushes. Jake spends the night camping out in the mountains of Montana. When he returns home the next day, he's brought something cold and evil back from the mountains with him. Two men go on a night dive off the California coast. Half a mile out, they discover a naked blonde-haired girl underwater, wrapped within the tall, swaying tendrils of green kelp.Philip and Jill move back to Maine, to an apartment overlooking a frozen pond, where talk has it a giant frog lives. Each night they hear louder and louder sounds coming from that thawing pond.All Mason wants to do is pick up his tuxedo from the dry cleaner's, but the visit leads to a battle of the wills with the young female cashier that becomes more and more dangerous. Charley is woken up in the middle of the night by his son Johnny, who owes the sinister Mr. Miller, who "doesn't take no for an answer," thousands of dollars. In the new world created after the zombie uprising, Nate makes a journey from his family's boarded-up home to the municipal water works where his father's employed, to make sure, for the sake of his kid sister Tess, their father is safe. You're seventeen, trying to break into the dominant crime mob in northern Texas, run by Knuggles, a police captain who wears a red plastic mask twenty-four hours a day. Your one advantage in life is you're a head-hopper. If you successfully hop into the head of a man Knuggles wants to control, he's promised he'll let you be a member of his mob. If the hop works. And if Knuggles is true to his word.

About the Author

Ralph Robert Moore is a British Fantasy Society nominee whose dark fiction has been published in America, Canada, England, Ireland, India and Australia in a wide variety of genre and literary magazines and anthologies, including Black Static, Shadows & Tall Trees, Midnight Street, Chizine, and Sein und Werden.His books include the novels Father Figure, As Dead As Me, and Ghosters; and the short story collections Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood.His second collection, I Smell Blood, tied with Justin Isis' I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like for Peter Tennant's award of Best Short Story Collection of 2011. "...If I were to do a 'Top Thirty Short Stories of 2011' list, they would dominate it... Each is a superb stylist and each has a unique voice...Moore crafts tales that bristle with attitude and energy...""I Smell Blood, Ralph Robert Moore's second short fiction collection, reinforces his reputation, amongst those in the know, that here we have a genre-storytelling giant in our midst." - AJ Kirby"Tired of the usual suspects? Bored with the same old genre clichés? Then follow my advice and read Ralph Robert Moore, a hell of a writer whose work is provocative and refreshing, never ordinary, always imaginative and graced by a compelling narrative style...Moore has all the features of a great writer: he conceives original plots, creates credible characters and makes them speak plausible dialogues, and, most of all, is a terrific storyteller. Try him, you won't regret it." - Mario Guslandi"An excellent writer." - Gary McMahon

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