Murderers and serial killers...Jilted lovers and outcasts... Broken men and lost women.... Loners.

Cutting across genres for more than 20 years, Mark SaFranko has excelled in charting the life of the outsider. This collection includes nine of SaFranko's stories... all shot through with his trademark realism.

'New York Times' bestselling crime author Seymour Shubin ['Anyone's My Name'] introduces the stories, hailing Loners as "a collection of brilliant short stories that had me twisting inwardly as I read them...They are magnificent."

Mark SaFranko's tales will appeal to fans of the first-person realism of Fante and Bukowksi, while the spiralling effects of being an outsider have drawn comparisons to Harry Crews ['The Gospel Singer'] and Chester Himes ['A Rage In Harlem'].

Some of the stories will shock ["Just Next Door"], some will thrill ["Alley Night"], some will provoke thought ["Life Change"] but all have the page-turning energy of writers such as Joe R. Lansdale ['Mucho Mojo'].