Nik Korpon

Nil Korpon is one of the modern crime writers whose tough, uncompromising visions are published by Snubnose Press. If you like dark, gritty crime fiction and want to read stuff that'll make you gasp, this is your ticket. These are short nuggets of literary stuff. The stories are filled with desperate people, often at the end of their ropes, often dreaming of a better life somewhere else, somewhere better, safer, more wholesome. The truth is few of them escape the bitter nasty world they are living in. It's a world where everyone is a con artist, no one can be trusted, no one will stick it out, and you can never turn your back. The writing style just grabs you and it often includes amazing prose, poetic descriptions and more. Amid the tales about adultery, conmen, condemned buildings, bar fights, accidents, and the like are lines about "empty street slumbers" and the "chain fence slinking around our building" like "snake skin at the corners." There is the man in the "white polyester suit"who looks like "a Messiah Elvis" and "the taste of salt on her neck" and the "hot sweat on her thighs." When he describes a woman, he talks about her hair fluttering in "thin burgundy wings" but its not all light and shadows because this is a book about screams falling underwater and voices drowning in blood. And the gal on the operating table, "Her skin parts like wet silk under a razor, and even with a gaping hole in her face, I think she's quite beautiful." This is not just literary stuff though. There are fight scenes in some of these stories violent and gory enough to make Spillane take notice. This is a great introduction to Korpon's work. Some of it is disturbing. Some of it is raw like an open wound.… (mer)

In a world with no apparent future, The Thief lives in and off the past. Once one of the leaders of The People in their rebellion against The Party, The Thief now wanders the ruins of The City looking for those from whom he can steal memories.

In a place where children play amongst rubble and an entire generation has no understanding of the way things used to be before The Struggle, memories are a commodity more valuable than diamonds or gold, heroin or cocaine ever were.

The Thief knows this better than most, as he not only survives by stealing memories and selling them, but by reliving his own precious memories of life before the war; before his wife and young son were killed in one of the riots that sparked the beginning of the end.

And then one evening while on a job everything he thought he knew to be true is turned upside down when one of the memories he collects not only includes his wife, but appears to show that she and his son weren’t killed in the riots. Now The Thief must confront his boss and former comrade from The Struggle, the man who told him his family was killed… the man The Thief now suspects not only knows more than he’s saying about the disappearance of The Thief’s family, but who may actually have had something to do with it.

Nik Korpon’s By the Nails of the Warpriest is a post-apocalyptic dystopian gut punch of a novella. That the main character is never actually named adds to the sense of unease and disorientation that permeates The City, yet at the same time the things that drive The Thief are as solid and familiar as it gets: love and hate, guilt and hope. Korpon’s writing skillfully paints the picture of a man and a world both broken by events of the past, and Korpon invites the reader to follow The Thief on a haunting journey through the memories of men who betrayed him as The Thief tries to nurse the ember of hope he’s rescued from the rubble of the past into a flame which will guide him into a better future.

As fulfilling as any full-length novel, By the Nails of the Warpriest is a thought-provoking read whose powerful themes and atmospheric setting will linger long after you’ve finished.… (mer)

“Ain’t how a man does things that makes the man. It’s how he deals with what he’s done.” – Paddy

Cole is trying his best to man up and deal with the things he’s done. He used to run with the wrong crowd back in Boston, doing heavy lifting for his lifelong friend Chance Miller’s not so legit business. It was fun for awhile, especially spending ‘quality time’ with Chance’s beautiful if slightly psychotic sister, Delilah. Then Cole said the wrong thing to the wrong person and took a knife to the gut for his troubles. Not so fun anymore.

Older and trying to be wiser, Cole now lives in Baltimore with his new bride, Amy. He’s got a steady construction gig renovating houses, and he and Amy are working on adding a new edition to their family. The future’s looking bright. That is until two old ghosts crawl out of the shadows of the past and cast a pall over Cole’s future.

Upon arriving at his newest home renovation project, Cole’s informed by his boss, Paddy, that the owner and his wife have some very specific requests for the basement, and that they also give him a bit of the creeps. Cole immediately understands why when he’s introduced to the couple… Chance and Delilah.

Seems in the time since Cole last saw them they’ve upgraded their business and joined forces with the Russian Mafia. Oh, and they’re moving that business to Baltimore and want Cole to pick up where he left off and help them out moving a big shipment. Now Cole has to figure out a way to get out from under the ghosts of the past without turning his future into a nightmare.

A man with a troubled past searching for redemption. It’s an old theme, one which most writers have tried their hand at one time or another. Of course, Nik Korpon isn’t most writers. No, he takes what could have been a paint by numbers story and injects it with a tangible sense of humanity and desperation, and menace. Cole’s past is doled out in bits throughout Old Ghosts giving the reader just enough insight to explain why it isn’t as simple for Cole as just telling Chance and Delilah to piss off, but without ever fully explaining why their hold over him is so strong Cole can’t seem to break it. That half reveal causes the story to unfold in a constant state of tension, with the reader never quite sure which way Cole is going to jump. It makes for a wonderful sense of pacing, one which gives the novella a more meaty feel than one would expect from a work that clocks in at a tight 90 pages.

Korpon also makes beautiful use of the juxtaposition of Cole’s desire to have a child with Amy and the fact that it was the violent way Cole’s past with his old ‘family’ ended – that knife to the gut – which is actually the reason Cole and Amy are unable to create a new family of their own. And I’m sure it was no accident that Korpon gave Cole employment renovating and reconstructing homes, a job that mirros the renovation and reconstruction of Cole’s life. It’s touches and attention to detail like that which lift Old Ghosts above the standard ‘man seeking redemption’ tale, and which prove that Nik Korpon is undeniably an emerging talent to be reckoned with.… (mer)