Stunned to receive a great review in Publisher’s Weekly for my hippie crime novel due on October 14th, 2025!
Peace, Love & Haight
Max Talley. Three Rooms, $18 trade paper (298p) ISBN 978-1-953103-66-6
This immersive suspense novel from Talley (Yesterday We Forget Tomorrow) captures the chaotic rhythm of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in late 1969. Frederick Dorn, owner of United Hallucinations Gallery, is distraught that the mafia has moved into the neighborhood, bringing “cheap speed and strong heroin” with them. Pressured by his friend, police detective Victor Rodriguez, Frederick goes undercover to help the SFPD bust dirty dealers like “Rat-Man” Rathkin, whose tainted drugs have left a swath of dead users in their wake. During a meeting with Frederick, an earthquake causes Rathkin to fall off the Golden Gate Bridge, which triggers a domino effect that sees Frederick harassed by a rogue cop, avoiding recruitment from a dangerous mob kingpin, and struggling to hide his involvement with the police from his friends. To top it off, his finances are foundering, so he accepts a job as a “private third eye” for a couple looking for their teenage daughter, who has joined a cult. Talley introduces a daunting number of plot threads, but he skillfully weaves them into a dazzling tie-dye tapestry that brings a well-covered corner of American history to vivid life. It’s a trip.
My 3rd short story collection, Destroy Me Gently, Please, debuted from Serving House Books on June 15th, 2025 and is available on Bookshop, Powell’s, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
Happy to have my short story “Almost Grand Junction” in About Place’s Election 2024 issue: https://aboutplacejournal.org/issues/shaping-destiny/after/max-talley/
I will be leading a read & critique writing workshop at Santa Barbara Writers Conference at Mar Monte Hotel on the beach. For more info or to register, go tohttp://www.sbwriters.com
A big thanks to Editor Angela Borda at Borda Books for her literary & artistic support since 2018, as well as Associate Editor, Maryanne Knight. Gratitude also to Genna Riviechio of The Opiate for publishing my most unhinged stories. I remain indebted to my writers group, FOWG.
After the 2023 demise of Dark Edge Press, I’m adding 20,000 words to my short Santa Fe Psychosis crime novel and hope to publish a new edition in the future. I finished writing The Duke of Barstow novel in spring of 2023 and have it out on submission. The book tour for When The Night Breathes Electric, began in October, and will continue into Spring 2024. If you have enjoyed any of my novels or collections, please consider leaving a review at http://www.amazon.com or http://www.barnesandnoble.com They really help! Thanks.
Dark Edge Press Sign Author Max Talley
We are very excited to be able to share with you today that we’ve signed author Max Talley a two-book deal.
Santa Fe Psychosis is a hardboiled crime thriller and The Long Fadeout is a noirish crime novel. Both are atmospheric and high-octane and set in the US.
Link to In-Depth Interview with Max on Writing & Art by Chloe McFeters:
https://www.chloemcfeters.com/max-talley/
Super-psyched for the December 2020 Borda Books release of dark anthology: Delirium Corridor.
“Identity Liquid” appeared in The Gateway Review, Winter 2018.
“Dishevel Me” is the lead story in The Opiate Vol. 12. Talley’s literary fiction also appears in Vol. 10 and Vol. 8.
https://theopiatemagazine.com/previous-issues/
“The Soft Explosion of Fall” painting.
“Simon of Vermont” appears in the premiere issue of New Zealand’s Black Dandy.
“Confusion to our Enemies” appears in Chantwood #8.
Talley’s sci-fi tale, “Down in Chaotica” is in Del Sol Review #21 online
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http://www.delsolreview.webdelsol.com/#fiction
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http://chantwoodmagazine.com/issues/
Talley’s story, “Santa Fe Psychosis” appears in Hardboiled anthology. 
