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It Came From Del Rio

Part 1 of the Bunnyhead Chronicles

By Stephen Graham Jones, professor of English

Trapdoor Books

There are borders, and then there are borders. Between right and wrong. Between Texas and Mexico. The first is a joke to Dodd Raines, the second a payday.

Then there are the borders he’s made. Between himself and his estranged daughter, the border patrol agent. Between himself and his one-time employers. And there’s another border, one he cares about even less than the Rio Grande: the border between life and death.

Used to, the shadow Dodd Raines cast when he stood dripping from that water—it was the shadow of a fugitive. But now that fugitive’s coming home, and the shadow he’s casting?

It’s got rabbit ears. Listen, you can hear the chupacabras padding along beside him—their new master. He’s that big guy in the hood, slouching out by the gas pumps. Walking north, for justice. Austin’s never seen anything like Dodd Raines, and never will again.

Get ready.

“Stephen Graham Jones crosses into the noir badlands of No Country For Old Men—bloody and throwing sparks but cool as a killer angel—and by sundown he owns the joint.â€

—Will Christopher Baer, author of ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ and others

“No other writer could have done this. Period. Stephen Graham Jones has built a story out of radioactive scrap metal that anyone else would have rendered as kitsch. But with Jones, the diary of a rabbit-headded zombie chupacabra shepherd is absolutely convincing and utterly moving.â€

—Craig Clevenger, author of ‘The Contortionist’s Handbook and Dermaphoria’

“’It Came From Del Rio’ is not just for fans of horror or noir. Like great realist fiction, it touches a place in us all where we ask ourselves, ‘How far would you go? What would you do if you were wronged? Or your family—your father, your wife or your daughter.’ Vengeance. Jones serves it up cold in this captivating story of a man who becomes less of a man and more of a legend.â€

—Richard Thomas, author of ‘Transsubstantiate’

“That there is a rabbit-headed zombie in It Came From Del Rio is given away on the cover. How this happened is told in a pitch-perfect noir tale of love and revenge.â€

—Fred Cleaver, Denver Post Review