The Deepening Shade

The Deepening Shade

With his debut novel, <i>Hell on Church Street</i>, Jake Hinkson became known for combining religious fundamentalism with dark crime fiction. In his first story collection, <i>The Deepening Shade</i>, desperate characters grasp for moments of grace: A lesbian couple running a homeless shelter try to save a young woman controlled by a self-proclaimed prophet. A stripper commits a terrible crime to protect her sister from going to jail. A Pentecostal snake-handler avenges his daughter's murder only to find himself tormented by his own unbelief. An alcoholic cop, drunk on duty, attempts to stop Dick Cheney from robbing a gas station. In these stories and more, which range from the heartbreakingly tragic to the bizarrely funny, characters struggle violently with each other, and with themselves. <div><br /><br />"When a collection opens with quotes from Ingmar Bergman's <i>Winter Light </i>and Theodore Roethke's 'In a Dark Time,' you know you're in for a stroll on the dark side. That's just what Jake Hinkson provides in <i>The Deepening Shade</i>. Hinkson's work is raw and violent and powerful."<br />Mystery Scene Magazine<br /><br />"Jake Hinkson is the kind of storyteller who picks the reader up by the ankles and shakes their heart out through their throat. <i>The Deepening Shade</i> is the best short story collection I've read in years." <br />Benjamin Whitmer, author of <i>Pike</i> and <i>Cry Father</i> <br /><div><br /><br />"Collectively, these stories are a feat of black magic conjured by a master wordsmith and storyteller intimate with both the dark side and the resiliency of humanity." </div><div>Eric Rickstad, author of <i>Reap</i> and <i>The Silent Girls<br /> </i></div></div>