Everything Happens : Jo Perry
This novella was first published in a limited edition Tete Beche edition along with fellow Fahrenheit Press author Derek Farrell, it's been unavailable in any physical format since 2019.
Jennifer married Jake in a whirlwind of Las Vegas romance, now exactly one year later she’s driving back to Sin City so she can file for divorce and write her loser husband out of her story for good.
Her loser husband meanwhile is confirming his reputation with a string of bad decisions and mis-steps that ensure his life is sent spiralling wildly out of his control.
Cue car chases, kidnapping, double crossing, triple crossing, death, vengeance plus some massively over-priced wedding dresses and you’ve got the recipe for a hugely entertaining slice of richly cinematic noir that will leave you gasping and begging for more.
Praise for Everything Happens
"Stepping away from her excellent Dead Dog series, this is a fine novel where everything happens at the end." – Eric Idle
"Perry's story is by turns intriguing, exciting and TERRIFYING. Great characters. Ingenious plotting. Maximum joltage. A fascinating look at LA and Las Vegas, which doesn't ignore the dispossessed. Kept me guessing right till the end." – Mark Ramsden, author of Dread: The Art of Serial Killing
"Jo Perry has written a killer novella, vivid, dizzying, and scary. Everything Happens is a heart-pounding, rapid pulse trip across the desert landscape, traversing a minefield of human desperation. Perry’s compelling voice, language, imagery weave together the ultimate Vegas nightmare, where hope and redemption are a mirage —until they’re not. The sun sizzles. The dialogue crackles. The darkness creeps. This is a gripping work, a read-in-one-sitting, unputdownable book. Highly and enthusiastically recommend.” – Steven Cooper, author of Valley of Shadows and the rest of the Gus Parker & Alex Mills series.
"Cold hearts and broken hearts intersect a blistering American desert. Classic American noir with a contemporary outlook; Jo Perry is in Jim Thompson territory here, but she makes it all her own and with writing sharp enough to slice bone. I loved EVERYTHING HAPPENS." – Timothy Hallinan, author of the celebrated Simeon Grist, Junior Bender and Poke Rafferty novels.
"I can’t think of a better way to pass an evening than in the company of Jo Perry and the wonderfully dark, deranged and delightful EVERYTHING HAPPENS." – Derek Farrell, author of the celebrated Danny Bird mysteries
"...an unusual journey, and all the more compelling for the way it ends up, the unexpected shift in power and the way [Perry] challenges gender and genre convention in noir. [Perry] leads you down one path, to take a sudden turn in the story, to call it a twist doesn’t for me get to the root of what I think Jo has achieved here. This reads to me like a very deliberate challenge to mainstream crime writing and the expectations of characters within it. [Perry} is playful with typical structures and subtly subverts them to create a compelling tale..." – Matthew Keyes, It's An Indie Bookblog
“Everything happens for a reason and karma is a bitch, except when it's not. A fully fleshed out story with well-rounded characters in a limited number of pages, it never ceases to amaze me how much certain authors can do with few words. Crime and grime in Las Vegas, loved it!” – Kelly Van Damme