Humorous dark thrillers

A dream flip turned on its head, a body insulated than most homes, and the bomb squad on speed dial? Could this flip be a stone dead flop?

Henry thought he'd hit the jackpot with his fixer-upper, but that was before he uncovered a body hidden in one wall. There wasn't a chance the guy had gone gentle into that good night. Kicking and screaming and without teeth and fingerprints was Henry's summation.

The other thing he'd unearthed on reporting his grisly find was a decades -old vendetta. One that saw him at odds with Police Chief Stan Baker, the guy heading up the investigation, and the jerk determined to charge Henry with the murder. But why? Because this went way past high school bullying.

Lucky for Henry, he wasn't alone in trying to clear his name, with Jed his offsider, lawyer Belinda Wanamaker, and decrepit private investigator Ervine Wallace along for the ride.

Was the place going to be a flip or flop? Or would it prove to be the goldmine Henry always knew it to be?

"When you say you'd do anything to lose the weight, do you really mean it?"

Desperate people make stupid mistakes, and Marilyn Channing is no exception. Emerging from the wreckage of a messy divorce, she's determined to lose the weight gained from twenty years spent swallowing her pride.

Enter The Vale, a spa nestled deep in the bush, miles from temptation, miles from help. In return, the retreat promises spectacular weight loss and a respite from the chaos of everyday life. It all sounds so lovely and supportive, so deceptively easy.

Marilyn should have read the fine print.

Because more terrifying than what's on the other side of the razor-wire perimeter fence, is Candice Hawkie. As malevolent as she is thin, the spa's manager has tapped into the abyss of humanity's darkest desires, one in which everything has a price, even death.

In a world where the desire to lose weight comes at a cost, what lengths will Marilyn go to for the ultimate transformation? Find out in A Pound of Flesh where the scales of fate tip perilously between life and death.

MEET THE AUTHOR:

Sydney has a love of writing passed down to her by her mother, although if still alive, she'd be smacking 'Syd' across the back of the head given the direction her writing has taken. Irreverent and cutting and featuring a decidedly sick sense of humor, these stories are not for the squeamish or faint of heart.

Nor does Sydney shy away from violence in her books, with it always serving a purpose. However, she does shy away from helpless victims. Her characters (especially the women) fight back, think their way out of impossible situations, and refuse to go quietly into that dark night. Because in Sydney's world, the real horror isn't what happens to you, it's what you're willing to do to survive.

Dark humor and biting satire thread through every page, because sometimes the only way to deal with the darkness is to laugh at it. Sydney firmly believes even a dark thriller with a smidge of humor can have a satisfying HEA.

You just have to be willing to get your hands dirty getting there.