Currency of Souls

Welcome to Eddie's Tavern, the only functioning waterhole in a near-dead town. Among the people you'll meet tonight are: Tom, Milestone's haunted lawman, who walks in the shadow of death; Gracie, the barmaid, a wannabe actress, doomed to spend her hours tending bar in a purgatory of her father's making; Flo, the town seductress, who may or may not have murdered her husband; Cobb, a nudist awaiting an apology from the commune who cast him out; Wintry, the mute giant, whose story is told only in cryptic messages scribbled beneath newspaper headlines; Kyle, the kid, who keeps a loaded gun beneath the table; and Cadaver, who looks like a corpse, but smells real nice, and occupies his time counting stacks of pennies. And then there's Reverend Hill, who will be in at eleven, regular as clockwork, to tell them who's going to die, and who's going to drive. Welcome to Eddie's, where tonight, for the first time in three years, nothing will go according to plan.

From Publishers Weekly

Burke expands on the bar-tale theme of his 2005 anthology, Taverns of the Dead, in a gripping horror novel whose motley cast of characters drink the evening away in a seedy bar, Eddie's Tavern, in a dying town called Milestone. Each is stained by—and may even have caused—an ugly death that still haunts him or her. Reverend Hill acts as judge and jury, ordering the barflies to go punish others in order to make restitution for their past sins. But then someone torches the bar, revealing the true evil crouched at the core of this beer-soaked corner of hell. Sheriff Tom Turner, who just wants "things to be the way they were before my wife died... before we all ended up here as slaves to our sins," bargains to save the town, but the cost may be too much to bear. At the haunting conclusion, escape proves only a brief respite from damnation. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Burke's anthologyTaverns of the Dead (2004) featured stories of supernatural shenanigans in beleaguered barrooms. Now he takes the conceit a step further in his own gruesome dissection of the tormented patrons of Eddie's Tavern. In the deteriorating back-road town of Milestone, Eddie's is the lone watering hole for an assortment of angst-ridden locals, ranging from mute, giant Wintry McCabe to Milestone's sheriff, Tom Turner. Each carries the burden of having directly or indirectly killed someone, and each endures a ritual Saturday-night assignment from the diabolical Reverend Hill to rid the world of another evildoer and thereby cancel out his or her sins. But when the good reverend is dispatched by a bullet, and Eddie's burns to the ground, the stakes in the game of redemption become higher than anyone could have imagined, and Milestone's haunted citizens soon learn their purgatory may be everlasting. Burke's sharp-edged prose includes enough unforgettable characterizations and dollops of macabre wit to distinguish him as one of the most clever and original talents in contemporary horror.^B Carl HaysCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Inside Flap

Welcome to Eddie's Tavern, the only functioning waterhole in a near-dead town. Among the people you'll meet tonight are: Tom, Milestone's haunted lawman, who walks in the shadow of death; Gracie, the barmaid, a wannabe actress, doomed to spend her hours tending bar in a purgatory of her father's making; Flo, the town seductress, who may or may not have murdered her husband; Cobb, a nudist awaiting an apology from the commune who cast him out; Wintry, the mute giant, whose story is told only in cryptic messages scribbled beneath newspaper headlines; Kyle, the kid, who keeps a loaded gun beneath the table; and Cadaver, who looks like a corpse, but smells real nice, and occupies his time counting stacks of pennies. And then there's Reverend Hill, who will be in at eleven, regular as clockwork, to tell them who's going to die, and who's going to drive. Welcome to Eddie's, where tonight, for the first time in three years, nothing will go according to plan.

About the Author

Born and raised in Dungarvan, Ireland, Kealan Patrick Burke is a Bram Stoker Award-winning author described as "a newcomer worth watching" (Publishers Weekly) and "one of the most original authors in contemporary horror" (Booklist).Some of his works include the novels KIN, MASTER OF THE MOORS, CURRENCY OF SOULS, THE LIVING, and THE HIDES, the novellas THE TURTLE BOY (Bram Stoker Award Winner, 2004), VESSELS, MIDLISTERS, JACK & JILL, and the collections RAVENOUS GHOSTS, THE NUMBER 121 TO PENNSYLVANIA & OTHERS (Bram Stoker Award-Nominee, 2009), and THEATER MACABRE.Kealan also edited the anthologies: TAVERNS OF THE DEAD (starred review, Publishers Weekly), BRIMSTONE TURNPIKE, QUIETLY NOW (International Horror Guild Award Nominee, 2004), the charity anthology TALES FROM THE GOREZONE, NIGHT VISIONS 12 (starred review, Publishers Weekly, British Fantasy Award & International Horror Guild Award nominee), and DUST & SHADOW.A movie based on his short story "Peekers", directed by Mark Steensland (DEAD @ 17), and scripted by veteran novelist Rick Hautala (Bedbugs, The Mountain King), is currently available to watch on YouTube.He recently played the male lead in Greg Lamberson's film SLIME CITY MASSACRE, the long-awaited sequel to the cult classic SLIME CITY. The film is available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and is scheduled for limited theatrical release this summer.Visit Kealan on the web at kealanpatrickburke.com, or visit his blog at kealanpatrick.wordpress.com/

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