Off the Rails: A Collection of Weird, Wicked, and Wacky Stories

What happens if no one else sees the creatures calling to you from your back yard?

Or your perfect crime is not as perfect as you planned? What if a city-dweller on vacation meets a tribe of head hunters in the middle of the jungle?

Or if the best player on the boys' high school sports teams . . . is a girl?

What happens if everything you thought you understood goes . . . OFF THE RAILS?

In this eclectic collection of twenty-six stories, multi-award winning author, Jerome W. McFadden, takes a warped view of robbers, gang-bangers, killers, cowboys, dead people (who might not know they're dead), and the idiosyncracies of rural life in the mythical town of East Jesus, Texas. These fast-paced tales explore the satirical edges of crime, paranoia, human foibles, and the afterlife. Some of the stories are weird, some are wicked, some are wacky, but all contain the unexpected twists born of McFadden's unique sense of humor and dark imagination. These unpredictable treasures follow in the footsteps of an irreverent O. Henry . . . and Rod Serling.

Life, as you know it, is about to go off the rails.

Jerome W. McFadden came of age in East St. Louis, Illinois, but has lived on four continents. He brings his weird mix of city smarts, country wisdom, international insight, and plenty of skepticism and snark to his stories about life and death, and all that happens in between.

In an effort to support his addiction to writing, Jerome W. McFadden has sold carbon black in Africa, boogie boards in Europe, and crayons in Asia. These efforts have led him to long term residences in Istanbul, Casablanca, Paris, and Singapore, as well as short stays in Houston and San Francisco. He now resides in eastern Pennsylvania. These writing efforts have brought a swath of awards and honorable mentions from a wide range of writing contests, including a Bullet Award for the best crime fiction on the web in 2009; appearances in a wide range of e-zines, lit magazines, and anthologies; plus the reading of his stories on stage by the Liars' League Hong Kong and London. All of which has taught him not to leave his day job. He is currently a member of the Bethlehem Writers Group (http: //bethlehemwritersgroup.com) and the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group (http: //glvwg.org), and is a frequent contributor to the Bethlehem Writers Roundtable (http: //bwgwritersroundtable.com).