Nightlife

From the primeval rain forest comes an uncontrolled substance never intended for consumption by the civilized mind…To the warrior-shamans of the Venezuelan forest people, the drug is a sacred substance: part pain, part pleasure, all power. Skullflush is pure psychic whiplash … an exhilarating gateway to an advanced consciousness beyond time and species.Deep in the Amazon, the primitive tribe has kept its secret safe from civilization. Until a rising drug lord ends up with a stolen six-kilo stash, and begins to peddle his prize in the nightclubs of Florida.Tampa’s thrill-seekers are eager to sample the pale green powder. But generations of urbanized decadence have left them jaded, shallow, and weak … too weak to handle the drug’s mystic high. The ancient rain forest chemistry warps bone, muscle, and sinew in their city-soft bodies, setting free the ferocious power of man’s basic nature.On the rebound from a life in ruins, Justin Gray is the sole witness who can connect the fearsome power of skullflush with the carnage left in its wake. A marked man, with a new love and an unlikely ally from the heart of the rain forest, he's forced to learn the ways of the urban jungle, where everyone is both hunter and hunted.PRAISE FOR NIGHTLIFE"Hodge has come up with a scary winner. Unlike many of today's horror genre, Nightlife is believable … keeps you moving in a straightforward line until you get to the catastrophic end." — The Santa Cruz Sentinel"Color, sprawl, melodramatic action, and a feel not altogether unlike the prime of Miami Vice … it's right in there like a Charles Willeford portrait of South Florida at its grotesque best. Lots of heat." — Ed Bryant, in Locus"Switching back and forth between the mundane, the desperate, and the surreal, Nightlife displays a fascinating range: varieties of darkness." — Farren Miller, in Locus"Fascinating, frightening, and fierce, without for a moment failing to be richly human." — Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser series