The dark humor crime novel about Family, TTRPGs, and escaping into fantasy
The Sopranos meets Dungeons & Dragons when the son of a crime boss accidentally becomes a crowdfunding superstar and disrupts business on the streets with his RPG. Bill Schweigart (The Fatal Folklore Trilogy) game masters a crime fiction novel that will make you finally get that THACO LIFE abs tattoo.Tommy Fugue never cared for the family business. But when his father—aka Big Al, aka King of the Denver Streets—assigns him the “summer job” of laundering money online, Tommy figures he can list some fake projects on FunFunder, pledge them with zombie accounts, and clean a dirty $20,000 in time for college in the fall.Unfortunately for Tommy, he’s more creative than he thought. Just as he’s about to give his father’s capos a progress report, he sees that a roleplaying game he mocked up using his mom’s old artwork has been funded to the tune of $650,000… and counting. The only thing scarier than an angry Big Al is a Big Al that smells cash and family bonding time. Voluntold by their mercurial boss to assist, various criminals and killers help playtest and produce Tommy’s 1,000 Blades of Tergivers RPG in the hopes they can truly turn a dirty twenty into legit millions.At first Tommy sees game sessions with brothel owners, hit women, and a street captain with OCD as yet another example of why he needs to get out from under his father. But when Tommy realizes that being game master might help him uncover what these criminals know about his mother’s disappearance, it’s Game On.Playing a game while making a game is tricky—especially when elements of the fantasy world keep blending into the players’ real lives. And when the streets declare the Family Fugue slipping, Big Al starts playing a new game, with rules only he knows.
Contributors: (W) Bill Schweigart
Bill Schweigart is the author of The Guilty One and “Women and Children First,” a story co-written with James Patterson in Three Days to Live. He is also the author of The Fatal Folklore Trilogy, which includes The Beast of Barcroft, Northwoods, and The Devil’s Colony. He is a former Coast Guard officer who drew from his experiences at sea to write the nautical thriller, Slipping the Cable and the romantic comedy, Running Light. Bill currently lives in Arlington, VA with his family, who along with their monstrous Newfoundland and too many cats, provide him with all the adventure he can handle.