Justin Robinson fans, rejoice! A new tributary is joining the City of Devils (comprised by City of Devils, Fifty Feet of Trouble and Wolfman Confidential, and we now get to see a non-human’s point of view. This is also to celebrate Justin’s much-deserved membership in the HWA (Horror Writers Association).
The first branch of the new thorn tree is A Stitch in Crime. Its protagonist is Jane Stitch—as intrepid as hardboiled gumshoe Nick Moss, if less loquacious (she gives new meaning to the term “strong silent type”). Readers of the City of Devils trilogy encountered Jane in Wolfman Confidential and in the bonus story “A Touch of Verdigris”. Here’s the riveting synopsis of A Stitch in Crime:
Assembled from the corpses of six women, Jane Stitch is haunted by impulses she can’t control and memories from times and lives before her animation. When she returns to her hometown to solve the mystery of her creation, she finds herself drawn unwillingly into a war between rival gangs of monsters for control over the patch of desert she once called home. Her creator, the only one who knows where she came from, has an agenda of his own and it doesn’t include helping Jane put the ghosts of her past livest to rest. In the Arizona desert, among thundering herds of giant ants, in the shadow of a frozen blob, Jane is determined to solve the riddle of herself. Or die—again—trying.
A Stitch in Crime will be unleashed around the Ides of March 2020. Keep your radios on at this frequency for more announcements to come. In the meantime, you can keep senses sharp and appetites whetted by checking out Nick’s earlier exploits.
Image: Jane Stitch working as a waitress/cigarette girl at the notorious Nocturnist nightclub; artwork by Fernando Caire