Crimes of Passion: Tales of Erotic Horror (The Hot Blood Serie...

Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Ramsey Campbell, and others blur the lines between terror and temptation in fourteen hedonistic tales of horror.  Crimes of Passion, ninth in the award–winning Hot Blood series of erotic horror, has a criminally good array of talent—fourteen stories by authors as diverse as literary giant Joyce Carol Oates, mystery giant Lawrence Block, horror giant Ramsey Campbell, musician Greg Kihn, and Brian Hodge, who pens the stunning Bram Stoker Award finalist “Madame Babylon.” It’s “like a powerful handgun being cocked in your ear” (award-winning author Edward Bryant for Locus) and “should serve to warm your veins quite nicely during the long winters night” (Booklovers). You’ll find yourself cuffed to the page until you finish this inescapable, essential volume. With some of the biggest authors and best stories, Crimes of Passion is erotic horror at its sinful, wonderful best.  Praise for the Hot Blood series “Read Hot Blood late at night when the wind is blowing hard and the moon is full.” —Playboy   “Outstanding . . . A daring combination of sex and terror.” —Cemetery Dance   “Will appeal to your every kink.” —Locus   “Seek out this one (or its predecessors) for some naughty fun.” —Booklovers

Amazon.com Review

This ninth installment in the Hot Blood series shows no sign of flagging imagination on the part of the contributors--not surprisingly, because the concept of erotic horror encompasses everything dark and sensual that can happen between two beings (human or otherwise). In fact, in a time when only a few original (or mostly original) anthologies are published each year, Jeff Gelb's and Michael Garrett's has become one to bank on. The 13 stories in Crimes of Passion include three reprints (all from relatively obscure publications such as The Ontario Review) and 11 original tales, by such authors as Ramsey Campbell, Greg Kihn, Lawrence Block, Brian Hodge, Brian Lumley, Tom Piccirilli, and Joyce Carol Oates. There's not a bad story in the bunch, and several are strikingly effective--such as Kihn's acid-tripping nightmare in late '60s San Francisco, Hodge's Bram-Stoker-nominated tale about a woman who dives so far into submissive prostitution she seems to break through into an alternate reality, and Oates's superb portrait of a promiscuous drifter on a mission from God. --Fiona Webster

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