Damnable, Hank Schwaeble’s debut thriller, has been released in paperback by Jove.
Description: Special military operative Jake Hatcher, a skilled interrogator trained to extract information by all means necessary, is serving jail time for doing his job – a little too efficiently. A letter from his mother, requesting his emergency release to attend the funeral of his brother, springs him from temporary hell. There’s only one problem – he’s an only child. And unbeknownst to him, there’s a much worse hell waiting in the wings.
After confronting his mother, Hatcher sets out to learn about the brother he never knew, and look into the circumstances of his death. This seemingly idle foray leads him to dead people who don’t stay that way; a seamy supernatural community filled with creatures that thrive beneath the streets of New York City; cops unconcerned with either protecting or serving; and the most gorgeous women he’s ever met, temptresses whose entire existence revolves around the pursuit of pleasure and the perpetuation of evil.
The driving force behind much of Hatcher’s journey is the scheme of wealthy eccentric Demetrius Valentine, a man with complex motivations involving large-scale revenge, wickedness, and torture. His goal is to avenge the death of his parents through fulfillment of an ancient prophecy connecting the rise of the prince of hell to the end of heaven. The ever-resistant and unlikely hero, Hatcher discovers that only he can stop Valentine and put an end to his diabolical madness.
“In Damnable, I wanted to explore the seductive nature of evil,” says Schwaeble, a Bram Stoker award winner for editing, and an active member of both the Horror Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers Association. “And I wondered what it would be like for a man who was already damned to become the lone person who could save the society that condemned him from damnation.”
