Quinsigamond

A narcotics detective wages war against a deadly new stimulant The drug is called Lingo, and it's the most powerful narcotic Lenore has ever seen. This cheaply manufactured pill races straight for the brain's language center, supercharging it so that even a dimwitted person can speak and read at 1,500 words per minute. It induces giddiness, confidence, and sexual euphoria-with a side effect of murderous rage. The drug has come to Quinsigamond, a fading industrial center in the heart of Massachusetts, and it's going to tear this town apart.   Lenore believes she can stop that from happening. A narcotics detective with a few addictions of her own-amphetamines and heavy metal, to name a couple-she loves nothing more than her gun, until she meets Dr. Frederick Woo, the linguist assisting her on the case. Together they can stop the drug-if it doesn't take hold of them first.

A homicide detective tries to stop an ex–FBI agent's murderous rampage Though they posture themselves as revolutionary, the jammers are harmless. Radio nerds who gather each night at a nightclub called Wireless, they get their kicks by jamming commercial radio signals, hijacking their frequencies to broadcast anarchist messages to the ordinary citizens of Quinsigamond. But even though they do no harm, their hobby has attracted murderous attention.   Speer's killing spree starts with a priest. The one-time seminary student and ex–FBI agent has tired of seeing the city's cathedral denigrated by immigrants, addicts, and gang members, and he blames Father Todorov for catering to the undesirables. He corners the priest in the confessional and takes out his rage with a Bowie knife. Now he wants the blood of the fiery young anarchists who hijack his radio dial each evening. Homicide detective Hannah Shaw must infiltrate this strange subculture before it is dismantled by Speer's blade.

A crime boss's son and an amateur photographer embark on a strange journey Nothing matters to Jakob besides film noir. Ever since he was six years old, when his nanny first took him to the cinema, he has known that filmmaking is his future. His first script, Little Girl Lost, is finished, and as he prepares for production, he feels destiny within his grasp. Nothing stands in his way but his father, a boss in the Quinsigamond underworld who wants his son to be a killer, not an auteur.   Aspiring photographer Sylvia Krafft is trapped as well, bound by her husband's rigid ambition and lack of artistic temperament. Undeveloped negatives inside a used camera lead Sylvia on a quest for the man who took the pictures, and she soon finds herself at Herzog's Erotic Palace, a porno house where Jakob works. As the duo attempt to realize their ambitions, they journey into a twisted world where art and death are endlessly intertwined.

An ex-cop gets sucked back into an evil world he thought he'd left behind "Vealshank" Tani's life ends in an abandoned train station. The killers don't just torture Tani, they skin him and hang him from a steal beam as a treat for the carrion eaters. This grisly scene wouldn't matter to Gilrein, a cabbie who knows to mind his own business, except that he spent the evening as Tani's chauffeur. Whether he knows anything or not, his life is now a liability to August Kroger, kingpin and rare-book addict-and enemies of Kroger do not live long.  Before he drove a Checker, Gilrein was a cop, with a life built around the force. His wife wore a badge as well, serving valiantly until the day an explosion took her life and forced Gilrein to abandon their profession. Sensing a connection between Tani's death and his wife's, Gilrein reopens the case, hoping to expose the conspiracy that ended her life-before it claims his too.