Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels by Ron Earl Phillips

Shotgun Honey Presents: Both Barrels Reviews

• 
  Andrea

  Some good crime stories here. I love these Shotgun Honey collections—I wish they were easier to find.
• 
  Scott Cumming

  I picked through this one off and on for a few months and it's at this point my lack of note taking comes back to haunt me as I can honestly say I can't remember a few of the stories now. As is the case with most anthologies there are ups and downs and it's only to be expected in a book with 29 tales. They adhere to the typical Shotgun Honey hardboiled/noir genre with elements of other genres mixed in at the authors' leisure.
  
  Some of my favourites from the collection are "Not Forgotten" by Chris F. Holm, "Intubation" by Glenn Gray with its unique twist on the Shotgun Honey, "Cold Read" by Joe Myers, "Cut. Copy. Paste. Delete." by Peter Farris, which has shades of the film Looper to it, "The Wrench In Her Works" by Mike Oliveri and "A Good Boy" by Trey R. Parker, which despite a rhythm that takes time to get used to, delivers a memorable tale.
  
• 
  Dave

  This is a great collection.
  Father's Day by Dan O'Shea is a worthy place to start. A richly written
  tale that you knew was going to be great from the first paragraph.
  Bout how to divide up inheritance and what to do about the hunting
  lodge. I am quite interested to see what else this writer has up his
  sleeve. Story two, How To Launder A Shirt by Patti Abott is also a
  worthwhile tale. It is written so well you don't realize the
  mundaneness of the subject matter. It is another gem. The third story
  is Lucky by Tom Pitts and it is another terrific tale about luck and
  payback And the masterpieces keep popping up. This anthology is given the
  highest recommendation.
• 
  Lyle Boylen

  A pretty nice collection of crime fiction stories.
• 
  Edward

  I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway and I'm sure glad I did. I'm a big fan of the Shotgun Honey magazine. A website that features short crime stories of 700 words or less. Luckily, here they've opened the flood gates to allow writers to spread their wings.
  
  I discovered some really great writers from the magazine that are featured in Both Barrels, such as Matthew C. Funk, Jen Conley and Keith Rawson. But, there were some others that stood out to me:
  
  Intubation by Glenn Gray is about a doctor who is forced to save the life of a thug at gunpoint. While unknown to the perps, the doctors transgendered boyfriend is lying in wait to defend his man. Mike Oliveri's The Wrench In Her Works is about a woman looking for a bad boy biker and gets exactly what she wants in biker Spanner. Rage by Julia Madaleine, about a mother who can't seem to control her temper, leaned more toward horror. One of my personal favorite crime writers, Ray Banks, never fails to impress with his story The Warm Room. It's about a mama's boy who is terrified of losing his mother to another man and tries to pay someone to take him out. Finally, the martial arts action of Frank Bill's The Jade Bounty is a fast, fun, violent read.
  
  There are some notable authors I had never read before, but really impressed me. Andrew Nette, Naomi Johnson and Peter Farris had some very interesting stories in here. I'll be looking out for their names in the future for sure.
  
  Of course there were a few stories that weren't all bad, they just didn't grab me like these others did. Overall, this is a great read full of crazy individuals and shocking twists. It's a book you can savor every bloody page whether your on a bus ride or the subway or sitting on the john.
• 
  Ben Freeman

  Great collection of some of the best crime writers around. Some of which you've probably heard of and some of which you probably haven't. If you like the kind of stuff Shotgun Honey publishes on their website you'll like this collection of longer pieces by many of the same authors.
• 
  Nina Phunsta

  Wonderful stories!