Jack Gato entered his ranch-style home thoroughly exhausted from a ten-hour shift upholding the law. The whole house was dark. He grabbed the mail off the television set and absently reached for the adjacent floor lamp. Jack Gato never turned on the light. The next thing he knew, chunks of his body were being crushed with massive force, his back, his gut, his skull. Baseball bats. Dark faces. Dark masks.
He was unconscious in fifteen seconds flat, a limp entanglement of flesh showered in blood.
A small white piece of paper floated toward the floor, slow and graceful like a lazy snowflake, landing in front of his body, which was lying in the fetal position.
Don’t fuck with queers, the snowflake read.
—from Uprising: the Suspense Thriller
by Randy Boyd
A Double Lambda Literary Finalist:
Best Men's Mystery
Best Small Press Title
Available wherever books are sold
