Homicides & Horrors

The opening chapters here appeared as short stories in Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies and Short-Story Me. All of Tom Kropp's books started out as short stories he wrote that were published in well-known magazines like Chiron review, Horror Zine, Down in the Dirt, Freedom Fiction Journal, Short-Story Me, Churches, Children and Daddies, Flash Phantoms, J Journal, The Listening eye, Evening Street Review, Blood Moon Rising, Dark Harbor, Conceit, Muscle and Fitness and many other magazines.

Bo is a teenager and watches his father be shot dead by a local gang. Bo is half white and half African American, living in the LA ghetto. Bo kills several of the gang members with his father's rifle and then stages the crime scene to make it look like his father shot the gang members. The police and district attorney don't believe Bo and try to trick and frighten him into confessing. Bo is exposed to the criminal justice system and barely escapes going to prison for the killings.

Bo flees his new foster home and ends up running drugs to make a living. He is busted and ends up in jail, fighting for his freedom in the courts and for his life and safety in jail. He eventually gets out and joins the army during the war with Iraq.

Bo sees a lot of combat overseas and loses his foot due to an IED. He comes back to America needing a prosthetic foot. He ends up addicted to painkillers and gets involved with a major burglary and drug sales. He goes through a doomed romance with a drug-addicted prostitute and avenges her when she is slain by a serial killer. Bo ends up back in jail, fighting criminal charges in the courts and prisoners in prison. While inside, Bo saves the life of a Latino named Jose who has cartel ties in Mexico. They become good friends.

Bo gets out of prison and tries to go straight, but his parole agent pushes him too hard. Bo flees to Mexico, where he takes a job with his former friend from prison, Jose. Bo becomes a cartel criminal, protecting Jose in Jose's strip clubs, drug runs, and money laundering. A rival cartel goes to war with Jose's cartel, and Bo finds himself in the middle of it while he's also in the middle of a romance with a beautiful stripper.