PW #434: Adult Diverse Crime Fantasy: DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP

Manuscript Status: Finished

Mentor Name: J.C. Nelson
Mentee Name: Sean Grigsby
Title: DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP
Category: Adult
Genre: Diverse Crime Fantasy
Word Count: 76,000

Pitch:

Sin is R.J’.s business, and business is good, whether he’s selling revenge in Memphis or winning musical duels as the Devil’s Heavy Metal hit man. But when R.J. loses a rigged competition, he’s going to need every dirty deed in his arsenal to keep Beelzebubba’s claws off his own soul.

Excerpt:

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Well, He worked slow, and I was a hell of a lot more affordable. My mind sometimes drifted when boredom set in, and the white dude’s poor Stevie Ray Vaughan impersonation left the air in The Orpheum stale. He probably figured if he was battling a black guy with a guitar in an empty Memphis theater, said black guy must be a Bluesman.

I had some news for—Roth, I think was the name Gary gave me. He was about to get destroyed by a Metal head. I reckoned with his eyes squeezed shut, Roth hadn’t noticed my Judas Priest t-shirt—the bad-ass British Steel one with the hand gripping a razor blade.

A bowler hat balanced on his square head while he wailed out some old school Blues riff on an expensive Stratocaster, keeping his eyes closed and wagging his head with every note. The graying soul patch under his bottom lip twitched when he thought he was hitting the good parts. He tongued the hairs every so often to add effect.

Gary sat to my right with his arms around two empty chairs on each side. I never liked to get too close to Gary.

He turned with a grin and raised his thick, black eyebrows. “Not bad, R.J.”

My name is Robert Jeremiah Johnson and I blame my biological father’s penchant for Blues music. His husband, Frank, my other dad, used to say he also had a thing for Robert Redford.