Welcome to Eddie's Tavern, the only functioning waterhole in a near-dead town, a town unlike any other, because Milestone is alive, attuned to the good and evil in the people who call it home.
Among the people you'll meet tonight are: Tom, Milestone's haunted lawman, who walks in the shadow of death; Gracie, the barmaid, a wannabe actress, doomed to spend her hours tending bar in a purgatory of her father's making; Flo, the town seductress, who may or may not have murdered her husband; Cobb, a nudist awaiting an apology from the commune who cast him out; Wintry, the mute giant, whose story is told only in cryptic messages scribbled beneath newspaper headlines; Kyle, the kid, who keeps a loaded gun beneath the table; and Cadaver, who looks like a corpse, but smells real nice, and occupies his time counting stacks of pennies.
And then there's Reverend Hill, who will be in at eleven, regular as clockwork, to tell them who's going to die, and who's going to drive.
Welcome to Eddie's, where tonight, for the first time in three years, nothing will go according to plan...and Hell will come to Milestone.
From Publishers Weekly:
"...a gripping horror novel whose motley cast of characters drink the evening away in a seedy bar, Eddie’s Tavern, in a dying town called Milestone. Each is stained by--and may even have caused--an ugly death that still haunts him or her… At the haunting conclusion, escape proves only a brief respite from damnation."
From Booklist:
"Burke's sharp-edged prose includes enough unforgettable characterizations and dollops of macabre wit to distinguish him as one of the most clever and original talents in contemporary horror."
From the Agony Column:
"Burke writes one memorable sentence after another, ratchets the action up at an alarming pace and by the time the going gets weird, you know that Burke is a pro… You get that collection of odd personalities, each with a great backstory. But you get those backstories in the context of a really, really eventful night at the ol’ Tavern. Lives will end, at least for a short while. Undeaths will begin. Murders will be committed and if not solved, perhaps they’ll get resolved."
From the Rocky Mountain News:
"Bram Stoker Award-winner Burke spins a weird, frightening tale of despair and redemption with a deft touch of irony."
