Thrift Store Puzzles

by John Boden

Overview

Ken Allenwood is a man being devoured, from the inside out, one memory at a time. A once famed horror writer who now spends his days in an elder care facility waiting for the breath that will be his last and hoping he'll retain at least some memories from his long and unusual life. Has the unraveling fabric of his mind tangled with the threads of his fictive endeavors?

Elijah is a boy who adores all things spooky, a boy who spends the bulk of his time alone.

Then a change comes to the little town on Cordry. The killings are vicious and devoid of pattern, almost. When Elijah tells Ken about them, the old man grows fearful and decides to use his unreliable windows of focus to help his friends figure out what is going on and who or what is behind the murders.

A monster has come to roost in their midst. A creature that craves blood and possibly much more, inheritance of a sort, acknowledgment. A monster from the very dark recesses of Allenwood's mind, a horror very old and very bitter…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639512058
Publisher:	Dead Sky Publishing
Publication date:	05/13/2025
Pages:	140
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

John Boden was mostly raised in the mountains of Pennsylvania, in the small town of Orbisonia. He is a bakery manager by trade and finds a regular sleep schedule overrated. He currently resides with his beautiful wife and two sons, in a house sweetly haunted by the ghost of a beautician named, Darlene. He likes collecting lots of things and won't usually shut up about it. He believes Elvis is the King, Bigfoot is real and Midian is where the monsters live. His writing is fairly well received and has been called unique of style.

Editorial Reviews

"Your next favorite horror author, John Boden, not only understands, he sensitively breaches the subject while yet carving on your most paranoid nerve endings with a gonzo Dark Half/Basket Case shriekfest in Thrift Store Puzzles." —Ray Van Horn, Jr., author of Behind the Shadows, Coming of Rage and Revolution Calling

"…so poignantly heartbreaking that it made me ache." —Candace Nola, author of Demons In My Bloodstream

"Caught somewhere between the framework of unlikely friendships, a darkness lingers, brandishing through the mouthpiece of poetic prose. Boden builds momentum through character work, allowing each relationship to flourish in seeds of metaphor. Elijah and Ken, like an extension of a single throat, spoke to aspects of Boden's ideology, palpable and raw in their expressiveness." —Royal Poff, author of Sleeping Among Wolves

"Thrift Store Puzzles includes some of the best of Boden’s writing, both the brutal and beautiful, as monster meets metaphor in a tale that will haunt you." —Kelli Owen, author of The Headless Boy, Teeth and White Picket Prisons

"Thrift Store Puzzles will make your heart ache and your stomach turn in equal measure." —Michael Wehunt, author of The October Film Haunt and Greener Pastures

"Boden’s stories are ballads full of dream and anguish; horrific folk tales that celebrate the lost and the defeated." —Christopher Slatsky, author of The Immeasurable Corpse Of Nature and Palladium At Night

"Thrift Store Puzzles finds John Boden at his brilliant bloody best." —Josh Rountree, author of The Unkillable Frank Lightning

From the Publisher