Joe’s Spookiest Hits
Since Halloween is creeping up the calendar, I thought it would be a good idea to list my spookiest work in one spot so people can find them easily. (I can’t believe I’ve never done this!) But just what is Halloween fare? Is it horror? Demons? Ghosts? Domestic suspense that turns creepy? Turns out, I’ve written quite a bit that fits all those vibes.
Understand: I’m a multi-genre writer who mostly writes crime fiction. But when I sit down to write, I don’t really know what’s going to come out on the other end. More often than not, I end up mashing two genres together.
Case in point: Last year around this time, a mystery magazine asked to reprint one of my short stories about a private detective who investigates an alleged poltergeist. The story—The Sweatergeist—first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. You can’t get more mystery than a private eye. By rights, ghosts have no business showing up in such a story. But in this case…well, let’s just say it’s the strangest non-ghost ghost story you’ll ever read.
”The Sweatergeist” by Joseph D’Agnese
The ebook is $2.99 at most retailers, or grab my weird collection on our shop.
Other shorts that enter the realm of the weird…
Old Man’s Curse: A kid discovers a way to live a full century with only one catch: he’ll die by violence in his 100th year. Is it worth taking the bargain?
“Old Man’s Curse,” by Joseph D’Agnese
The ebook is $2.99 at most retailers, or grab my weird collection on our shop.
The Detective Who Stopped by Bedford Street: An ace detective solves cases by listening for clues that emanate from an unplugged radio.
“The Detective Who Stopped by Bedford Street,” by Joseph D’Agnese
The ebook is $2.99 at most retailers, or grab my weird collection on our shop.
Johnny Tomatoes: A detective with robotic fingers takes a bet that he can eat an endless banquet of tomatoes—with surreal consequences.
“Johnny Tomatoes,” by Joseph D’Agnese
The ebook is $2.99 at most retailers, or grab my weird collection on our shop.
Then there are the novels…
Ghosts make their appearance in two other books of mine. And if I were sticking to the genre tropes, they should not be there either. But they are. And in both cases, they make the damn story.
In The Mesmerist, the start of my paranormal thriller series, my narrator, NYPD Detective Tod Fisher, has a vision of someone from his past near the end of the book. It’s a deeply affecting moment that changes him deeply, and sets him up to continuing to explore the paranormal realm that he’s been sucked into. At the beginning of the book, he doesn’t believe in the uncanny. But after this encounter, he has no choice. A person who means a lot to him point-blank forces him to believe——and move on.
The Mesmerist, by Joseph D’Agnese
Ebooks and paperbacks available at all retailers, or on our shop.
Something similar is at work in my paranormal whodunit, The Marshal of the Borgo. My detective has a starring role in larger ghost story. He just doesn’t know it. Others around him do, but it’s not clear that he will ever learn the truth…
The Marshal of the Borgo, by Joseph D’Agnese
Ebooks and print copies available at all retailers, or on our shop.
And lastly…
Arm of Darkness is the spookiest collection I’ve ever written. It’s a group of six short stories that mostly come out of Appalachian folklore. A stranger with a mysterious arm appears in the lives of various people, offering them a Faustian bargain that they accept at their peril. It’s the most Halloweeny book in my catalog. I frankly don’t know where this stuff came from, but if you’re okay with body horror and demons, you might dig it.
Arm of Darkness, by Joseph D’Agnese
Ebooks and print copies available at all retailers, or on our shop.
Coming soon…
As I write this, I’m assembling a new short story collection. And true to form, at least six out of the ten stories in the new collection have a whacked-out vibe to them. There’s only one ghost story in the book, and it’s probably the most normal piece in the entire book.
I wish I could write nice, safe stories, but what’s the fun in that?
The Daggyland series by Joseph D’Agnese
All the short stories mentioned in this post are available in ebook form as single stories, or in one of three Daggyland collections.
Find them at most retailers or on our shop.
(The Arm of Darkness stories are sold separately or in that main collection.)
One last thing…
Yes, we went there.
We’re selling T-shirts on our store. This one is one of my favorites.
Let’s just say it fits my zeitgeist—or sweatergeist—to a T!
