Danno Garland

Professional wrestling meets Empire in a trilogy that RollingStone.com called "a one-of a kind literary offering for die-hard wrestling fans." New York City, 1969. Danno Garland is a middling member of the National Wrestling Council, a secretive syndicate of pro-wrestling promoters. He's kept his head down for fifteen years, but now he's found a new heavyweight champion, Babu, and plans to use him to build a wrestling empire. Blocked, though, by the NWC, Danno makes a deal with Florida boss Proctor King to ensure Danno's man will be the next title holder. In exchange, the belt will go to Proctor's son, Gilbert, once he's out of prison in a couple of years. But things don't go according to plan, and now Danno is standing in a sold-out Shea Stadium on the night of biggest wrestling card of all time, and neither Babu nor Gilbert has shown up. Meanwhile, Lenny Long, Danno's driver, is walking dazedly from the overturned van that was supposed to bring them to the venue, and the only sign of Gilbert is his foot. Across the country, Proctor nervously watches the show on TV, wondering why his screw-up of a son doesn't already have the championship belt in his hands. It's taken four years of pay-offs, double dealing, and bone-breaking to arrange this match, and if all that's gone to waste, he might just have to take a business trip to New York. The "fake" world of professional wrestling is going to get very real. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction-novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

What was business in the world of professional wresting has become personal in the trilogy RollingStone.com called "a one-of a kind literary offering for die-hard wrestling fans." Danno Garland has it made. After years of planning, backstabbing, and shady handshakes, he controls the world heavyweight champion and just about everywhere he can wrestle. Danno's outmaneuvered the other New York bosses, and he's the first in pro wrestling history to expand beyond his own territory and buy up others. He stands atop his own empire. But all of that has come crumbling down. Now he's a changed man. Now it's not the business he cares about, it's revenge. And Danno's willing to destroy everything he's built to find the man who did it. Meanwhile, Lenny Long, Danno's driver, is trying to get away from wrestling and his former boss. He wants to return home and be the husband and father he hasn't been. But Lenny needs to make things right before he can make a clean break, and that means returning a bag full of money he shouldn't have to its rightful owner. But this money is at the center of a deal gone bad. Lenny doesn't know just how deep in it he's put himself, and the world of pro wrestling won't let him leave without a fight. In this gripping second book in Paul O'Brien's Blood Red Turns Dollar Green crime trilogy, what goes on in the wrestling ring is a sideshow to cutthroat dealings outside.