King of the Cracksmen: A Steampunk Entertainment

(Paperback)

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Description

The year is 1877. Automatons and steam-powered dirigible gunships have transformed the United States in the aftermath of the Civil War.Liam McCool is an outlaw, known among other crooks as "King of the Cracksmen." But his glory days as a safecracker and the head of a powerful New York gang end when he's caught red-handed. Threatened with prison unless he informs on his own brethren fighting a guerilla war against Stanton's tyranny, McCool's been biding his time, trying to keeping the heat off him long enough to escape to San Francisco with his sweetheart Maggie. But when she turns up murdered, McCool discovers a trail of breadcrumbs that look to lead all the way up to the top of Stanton's criminal organization. Joining forces with world-famed lady reporter Becky Fox, he plunges deep into the underground war, racing to find Maggie's killer and stop Stanton once and for all.King of the Cracksmenis an explosive, action-packed look at a Victorian empire that never was, partTo Catch a Thief, partLittle Big Man, steampunk as you've never seen it before.

Reviews

Grabbed me from the opening explosion, and hurtled towards the conclusion far too quickly. When is the next one!
Phil Foglio, co-creator of Girl Genius

Just when steampunk has started to run out of steam, King of the Cracksmen arrives to inject a new level of inventiveness, action and sheer craziness into the genre.
K. W. Jeter, author of Infernal Devices and Fiendish Schemes

Rousingly violent, funny, sometimes shockingly profane.
Kirkus (starred review)

[OFlaherty] draws upon both the kind of academic background that makes scholars sit up and take notice, yet it's hard not to figure him for the cyberpunk love child of Agatha Christie and William Gibson. . . King of the Cracksmen is a multi-layered treat, and you're going to read it twice.
Huffington Post

"There isn't much room to catch your metaphorical breath in King of the Cracksmen. The plot steams ahead like one of the Acme robotic police that are patrolling O'Flaherty's alternate United States."
Summer Reading Project

"A lot of fun moments in this debut steampunk adventure."
Library Journal
Grabbed me from the opening explosion, and hurtled towards the conclusion far too quickly. When is the next one!
Phil Foglio, co-creator of Girl Genius

Just when steampunk has started to run out of steam, King of the Cracksmen arrives to inject a new level of inventiveness, action and sheer craziness into the genre.
K. W. Jeter, author of Infernal Devices and Fiendish Schemes

Rousingly violent, funny, sometimes shockingly profane.
Kirkus (starred review)

[OFlaherty] draws upon both the kind of academic background that makes scholars sit up and take notice, yet it's hard not to figure him for the cyberpunk love child of Agatha Christie and William Gibson. . . King of the Cracksmen is a multi-layered treat, and you're going to read it twice.
Huffington Post

"There isn't much room to catch your metaphorical breath in King of the Cracksmen. The plot steams ahead like one of the Acme robotic police that are patrolling O'Flaherty's alternate United States."
Summer Reading Project

"A lot of fun moments in this debut steampunk adventure."
Library Journal

Author Bio

Dennis OFlaherty is an author with several decades worth of film and television credits under his belt, including the Francis Ford Coppolaproduced Hammett.