I know Coast City buses and I know the Jersey shore, the jaded-beaten hearts, the awful-riddled hopes, the corrupt politics, the pork roll breakfast sandwiches with tepid 7-11 coffee waiting on the NJ Transit train to the NY Path switch, the false hopes of maybe (if you're lucky) an okay life...the pure joy of what's actually managed. Might be a nice townhouse in Manalapan or moldy, track home in the Pine Barrens. Belmar is nice, but then there's needles on the beach. Welcome to the Wall Street Irish-Italian fucking Riviera. Sorry if your beach was swept away by a nor'easter, but someone has to pay to build it back up, you Hummer-driving fuck....
I am still trying to write this stupid-stupid-stupid book where south Jersey shore P.I. Charlie Byrne roams and scrambles to keep his head above the cruel, incoming tide--even though he knows that he'll eventually drown...cold and alone--boardwalk lights fading onshore like waning stars. But maybe Charlie is okay with that. The lights--the stars...they twinkle like his grandmother's dying, watery eyes...telling him it will all be okay. It'll all be okay, Charlie....
Have a nice Thanksgiving, everybody.
BIO
KIERAN SHEA’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Thuglit, Dogmatika, Word Riot, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Crimefactory, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir ...as well as in some beefy-looking anthologies most of which will make you question the tether of his shiny, red balloon. To his self-deprecating astonishment he's also been nominated for the Story South’s Million Writers Award twice without sending the judges so much as a thank you note. He co-edited the satiric transgressive fiction collection D*CKED: DARK FICTION INSPIRED BY DICK CHENEY and his debut novel KOKO TAKES A HOLIDAY is out now from Titan Books. Kieran divides his time between 38°58′22.6″N- 76°30′4.17″W and 39.2775° N, 74.5750° W.