"Lauden's prose zooms along with an arch energy, and the final installment in his Greg Salem trilogy keeps the plot twists coming at warp speed."
—Kirkus Reviews
"If you read the first two volumes in the series, you're going to need to read this one like one would need air..."
—Dead End Follies
Praise for Grizzly Season
"Hard-edged with a deft eye and ear portraying the stone cold graspers hustling for their illicit deadpiece of the illusory rainbow, S.W. Lauden delivers the delicious jagged goods in Grizzly Season."
—Gary Phillips, author of 3 the Hard Way
"The twists, turns, and shocks are enough to leave the reader gasping for more.”
—Dan Malmon, Crimespree Magazine
"Grizzly Season isn't a novel about the drug trade. It is a novel about American drug paranoia. Magnus Ursus is a boogeyman hellbent on either indoctrinating young minds or destroying them with his new, demented, hypertoxic drug. He inspires the kind of terror that keeps concerned mothers up at night."
—Benoit Lelievre, author of Dead End Follies
"Highly Recommended: Grizzly Season offers readers the perfect mix of sex, drugs, and (punk) rock-n-roll, but also infuses it with heart, heart-break, and most importantly, a poet's touch. Lauden offers so much more than a standard PI read, he offers up a raw, gritty picture of the life of the PI, warts and all."
—Derrick Horodyski, author of Out of the Gutter
"Between thrilling action, a terribly interesting protagonist, fascinating and terrifying villains, and an extremely well-drawn supporting cast?Grizzly Season delivers in a big way. Big action, big guns, lots of blood spilled, sex, drugs—all of the fun shit. On top of that, you gain a better perspective of Salem and leave dying to know what happens next. It's everything you want the middle of a trilogy to be."
—Matt Morgan, Crimespree Magazine
"Lauden's new novel is wired with promises and threats that anything just might happen, and then it does—again and again. The furious pace never lets up. By the end you'll be bruised by the ferocious beauty of Grizzly Season."
—Joseph Di Prisco, author of The Alzhammer and The Pope of Brooklyn
"Sex, drugs, rock & roll—and bears. Lauden's latest has everything you want in a great thriller."
—Chantelle Aimée Osman
"The heart of Los Angeles pumps fast and hard in this modern noir mystery packed with immediate action that doesn't stop for a beat. Lauden laces Grizzly Season with so many twists, readers won't know what hit them."
—Anne Tibbets, contributing editor at The International Thriller Writers e-magazine, The Big Thrill, author of Carrier and Walled, plus Extinction Biome as Addison Gunn
Praise for Bad Citizen Corporation
"Bad Citizen Corporation pumps fresh blood into the corpse of American mystery. Lauden debuts with the storytelling ease of a veteran author. It's fun, sun-scorched, and salty as the beaches it hails from."
—Tom Pitts, author of Hustle and Knuckleball
"Like a punk rock Lew Archer novel, Bad Citizen Corporation challenges you to keep up with the twists and turns. A murder mystery that goes from sun-kissed L.A. beaches to dirty rock clubs in a story filled with damaged souls and the lasting bonds of friendship."
—Eric Beetner, author of Rumrunners and The Devil Doesn't Want Me
"Beach noir with some serious punk rock bonafides. Bad Citizen Corporation is a rush of a debut novel that poses timely, thoughtful questions set to a breakneck tempo."
—Rob Hart, author of New Yorked
"Carrying on in the tradition of musician turned mystery writers like Jo Nesbo and Bill Moody, SW Lauden's Bad Citizen Corporation pounds out an impressive rock-and-roll thriller. The story comes on strong and never lags behind its neck-breaking beat. Greg Salem, part-time punk rocker, now disgraced cop, plays like the bastard love child of Poly Styrene and James M. Cain. Add to the mix murder and mayhem—the girl who got away, seedy bars, real estate scams, vengeful heiresses, and an oddball assortment of thugs from the old neighborhood—drop it all under the warm Californian sun, and you've got the hit song—and must read—of the season."
—Joe Clifford, author of Junkie Love and Lamentation
"As savage, fast-paced and bleakly comic as your favorite punk rock anthem, S.W. Lauden’s Hang Time is a wicked and fitting finale to a first-rate trilogy, packed full of both sex and violence of the no-holds-barred variety, and building to a gut-punch conclusion that’ll leave you reeling long after you’ve closed the last page. If this is indeed the end of the Greg Salem show, I’m holding out for an encore."
—Owen Laukkanen, author of The Forgotten Girls
2017-11-28
A free-wheeling private detective runs afoul of a powerful record producer, the police, and thugs of all shapes and sizes."Punk hunk" by night, private investigator by day, singer Greg Salem and his drummer/sidekick Marco have just finished a successful gig with their band, Bad Citizen Corporation, and are looking at a tour. Tragedy intervenes in the form of a corpse hanging from a door at the club they've just played. A 1998 prologue has already shown Greg's older brother, Tim, hanging himself. Ominously, the corpse the Corporation finds has a note pinned to it: "I am Tim." While Los Angeles police try to unravel that mystery, Salem & Associates catch an interesting job: trailing voluptuous Gabriella Flores, wife and protégée of high-powered record producer Tony Flores. It turns into a wild evening, with drunken Gabriella rescued from a probable abduction/assault and showing her gratitude by sleeping with unchivalrous Marco. When a picture of Greg and Gabriella holding hands is posted online, two of Flores' thugs kidnap him and take him to their boss for a grilling. Flores throws a curveball by suggesting that he might be interested in Bad Citizen. Even though Salem & Associates are off the job, they're compelled to investigate when murder enters the picture. Against this backdrop, the case of the hanged man (including flashbacks to Tim in 1998) and plans for the Bad Citizen tour move inexorably forward. Never a dull moment.Lauden's prose zooms along with an arch energy, and the final installment in his Greg Salem trilogy (Grizzly Season, 2016, etc.) keeps the plot twists coming at warp speed.
