HARD SENTENCES: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY ALCATRAZ edited by David James Keaton and Joe Clifford

Broken River Books is one of the most exciting publishers out there, with great taste and a knack for finding interesting material. This is one of their latest releases, a collection of short fiction inspired by the country's most infamous penitentiary, from a group of great writers: folks like Jedidiah Ayres, Les Edgerton, Nik Korpon, Johnny Shaw, and Gabino Iglesias, all with different styles, ranging from Iglesias's bizarre shadow terror to the Cronenberg-sequel body horror style of Glenn Gray. 

The anthology does a good job of telling stories from different points of view surrounding Alcatraz. Sometimes they're about people intimately familiar with the place and sometimes the island haunts the stories' events from afar. We get tales from the points of view of prisoners, their relatives, children of prison employees living on the island (what a strange childhood that must have been!), and there are even some ghosts, demons, and historical figures like Capone, The Birdman, and Johnny Cash being awesome as usual. I wish there were more stories from the POV of the guards and other employees though. 

And although not every story is stellar, there are some great pieces here, like Ayres's "Clean Shot," Leah Rhyne's melancholy "The Music Box," Iglesias's hard-hitting "Creep," Rob Hart's punchline, "The Gas Chamber," and Matthew McBride's dynamic "A Broken Window." And all of the stories together serve to weave an inspired tapestry illustrating the undeniable notoriety of The Rock.

GRADE: B