Description
Men and women forced to march for their daily bread.
A crazy lady frets over pennies on the sidewalk.
A professor discovers we all may be works of fiction, cannibals hang out over pitchers of beer and one man knows the answers to the grandest mysteries of them all.
From award-winning Maine author Mark LaFlamme, here are 27 short stories that have been keeping readers up at night.
A man falls in love with a machine, a mind-reader wishes the human soul had a mute button and a visiting extraterrestrial finds human nature detestable but is hopelessly charmed by a simple game.
"Like Dean Koontz, John Saul and Stephen King combined," raves author Betty Dravis. "Yes, LaFlamme is THAT good!"
"Box of Lies" is the kind of must-read fiction your Kindle is starving for.
Praise and Reviews
"These stories race headlong through the twists and
turns of all kinds of macabre and fantastic situations, constantly
feeling like they could swerve off the road any second, but nonetheless
head single-mindedly for home, or somewhere worse. Practically every
story has the air of an old Twilight Zone episode."
- Dana Wilde, Bangor Daily News
"This collection scared the bejesus out of me."
- K.J. Keller - Author of 'Waiting for Spring'
"In BOX OF LIES, Mark LaFlamme grabs his readers by
the throat and never loosens his grip. More than two dozen short stories
in one outrageous collection packed with a wide-ranging variety of
over-the-top tales and oddball characters. Like his previous books, this
one is scary as BLEEP - loaded with clever twists, some of them
shocking. Entertaining, realistic, so well written, you find yourself
wondering - Could it really happen? With stories like these rattling
around inside his head, he must be an insomniac - maybe worse (?). The
man is a talent and one of my favorite authors."
- David Ebright - Author of The Jack Rackham Adventure series
"I absolutely could not put this collection of short
stories down! This is LaFlamme's best work to date, despite me being a
huge Pink Room fan, I have to admit this book really was over the top.
Not only is this book entertaining, but it is thought provoking and left
me wondering "what if...." on many occasions. Each story is all it's
own, but this collection will haunt your thoughts for some time. For the
past few days since finishing the book, I have been wondering, "Am I
really living in a SIMS world?" This is one book everyone should have on
their shelf, one of the best books I have read in a long long time. I
highly recommend this book."
- Gail Tarr, Amazon
"Like Stephen King at his best, LaFlamme doesn't stop
at visual terror. He takes us inside the diseased minds of the most
psychologically intriguing characters I've ever seen. "
- David Griffiths, Twin City Times
"Are you ready? Are you ready for something completely different?
If you are a fan of LaFlamme's work, this will seem at first like
familiar territory, but it won't be long until you realize the path he
is leading you on is much much different. Much darker, more complex,
more thought provoking than any of his previous work. I adored all of
his earlier writings, but this one raises the bar significantly.
Some stories leave you satisfied, some may leave you wanting more,
others may leave you feeling unsettled and looking over your shoulder,
but all will sit in your mind, your gut for days.
There are big stories here, neatly packaged in tiny little boxes. Go
ahead, just start with one or two. But trust me, once you open the first
box, the first story, take the first bite...
You're not going to want to stop.
- Lauren Zito, FrancisRocks! Productions
"I've read Mark LaFlamme's work before, so I thought
I knew what I was in for with his BOX OF LIES. Shivers at the back of
my neck, furtive glances over my shoulder, a sinking feeling in the pit
of my stomach... delicious! But I didn't bargain on the cumulative
effect of more than two dozen stories, each with its own chilling
atmosphere. LaFlamme is like a graffiti artist sliding around a corner
in the dark with his collar turned up, a few bold strokes and he's moved
on--but the territory of your mind has been tagged with his distinctive
images.
"If you're about to say that short stories aren't your thing, put that
opinion on hold for a day or two and peek under the cover here. See if
you really can resist. Each story opens with a line that yanks you in:
"Trevor Garbo liked dead things." "My name is Rudy Weather and I can
read your mind." "It was two days after the world ended when the old van
rumbled up Route 4." "'Do you ever worry,' Randall Albee asked him,
'That they might come for you?'"
"I wouldn't know where to start, telling you about these stories. Read a
few here, a few there, put the book down and think about them for a
while, go back and read a few more. One thing you know for sure is that,
whether you're reading about a band of murdering fourth-graders, a
shopkeeper defending his territory after the apocalyse, or a man who
made a very poor bargain for eternal life, the characters are so real
you can reach out and touch them, if you only dare.
"Many of these stories spoke to me of some truth I don't quite dare to
believe. For example, if you were moving into a new house as I am this
week, what would you think of a story like "Our House," about a home
that nurtures one of its new tenants while abusing the other? And do you
hope that we'll adopt a gentle new paradigm when the oil is gone but
fear that, instead, as it does in "The Neighborhood," it will come out
of our hides? And perhaps creepiest of all, do you ever think about what
could happen--or not happen--because you stopped to pick up a penny
(or, perhaps, didn't)?
"If you've let your imagination get a little rusty, prepare to be
challenged by Box of Lies. Stylish writing, great characters and some
wildly skewed concepts; it's a whole lot of entertainment with the
mind-bending thrown in for free."
- Linda Bulger, Amazon
"Don't start this book if you have to go to work
tomorrow. #1: You won't be able to put it down. You're going to have to
read the whole thing. It's a page turner. #2: Once you finish it you're
going to spend hours going over the plots and characters - so don't even
try to get your normal sleep. Unless your normal sleep is full of
nightmares. LaFlamme's images and characters will pop up over and over,
scaring you again and again.
"This book will smack you upside the head, squeeze your guts, and make you cough. You might vomit.
"LaFlamme drags open a curtain, showing you the scary corners of your
mind. He provides just enough science along with the phantasmagoric
fantasies to truly scare you crapless. He opens up his heart too,
offering up just enough soul to make this an honest read.
"Thanks, I think, for another haunted apartment house of horrors. Condos
of creepiness. Ghost ghetto of Lewiston, Maine. Yeah, thanks."
- Meredith Kendall, author "Reiki Nurse"