Profane Men by Rex Miller
Profane Men brings the dark and searing energy of such Miller horror classics as Slob and Chaingang to a story set in Vietnam during the late 1960’s. The novel is clearly informed by Miller’s personal experience. In fact, it’s filled with autobiographical touches (the central narrator character has a developing career in broadcast radio, among other things).
A rootless young man drifting through life and facing the likelihood of being drafted decides to choose his own destiny, seeking a way to avoid becoming cannon fodder. Unfortunately, he finds himself thrust into some of the worst corners of Vietnam, working with a team of assassins tracking a pirate radio broadcaster who seems to be supplying intelligence to the Viet Cong. And then things get complicated…
Other books by Rex Miller
In Butcher, Rex Miller brings back the heart-eating villain of Slob, Daniel “Chaingang” Bunkowski, the anti-hero you hate to love. After a seemingly endless term in prison, he is hungrier then ever to get his teeth into some bloody violence. The opportunities for mayhem were pretty limited in the maximum-security prison where he was being held for so long. Now that he’s out, his keeper, Dr. Norman, is anxious to put him to work. He has given Chaingang an important task: hunt down and destroy the one man who is more savage than himself. Doc Royal has been living quietly in rural Missouri, successfully hiding his secret youth as a death-loving Nazi. However, his past is about to come and haunt his present, just when Chaingang arrives to distract him from his troubles…
If Butcher keeps you up tonight, you might want to read other Chaingang horror thrillers by Rex Miller.
RC
One of the many wildly enthusiastic authors greeting Rex Miller’s horrifying debut thriller Slob wrote, “…tasty as a blood sundae. The only question is, What does Killer Miller do for an encore?”
The answer is, he wrote six more novels featuring Chaingang, the vilest killer you will ever encounter in fiction, and E-Reads publishes all of them.
I realize that warning readers that “this book is not for the weak-hearted” is usually hype, but I urge you to take my warning literally. If you are timid about looking squarely into the eyes of death personified, click away before it’s too late and visit our Romance section. Just to reinforce my warning, I’m reproducing below endorsements from the likes of Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Graham Masterton, Steve Rasnic Tem, Marion Zimmer Bradley, John Coyne, Tom Monteleone, Alan Nourse and Piers Anthony.
One of the most amazing things about these books is that Miller managed to make you feel sympathy and even empathy for its repulsive anti-hero, thus making Chaingang a cult figure that readers not only love to hate, but even more astonishingly hate to love as well.
And speaking of looking evil in the eyes, The cover of the original Pocket Books paperback edition of Chaingang, one of Slob’s sequels, was so revolting that an associate of mine begged me not to display it in our offices, lest it give her nightmares. It was a “step-back” cover showing Chaingang’s porcine eyes gazing hungrily at you through a slit in the door of his padded cell as if hoping your heart was his next lunch. But when you turned to the stepped-back cover (the one behind the jacket), you saw Chaingang in all his revolting, mesmerizing awfulness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better example of an artist bringing a character to life, and to tell the truth it gave me nightmares too. If you look closely you can glimpse it on the spine of the Pocket Books jacket picture but if anyone can provide the full image of that step-back, you’ll earn my eternal gratitude.
If you’re curious about Rex Miller, click here.
– Richard Curtis
“Terrifying and original…Almost too crudely terrifying to be read…but it is too compelling to put down…. Marks the debut of a writer able to bring the dynamite in both hands…. A cause for rejoicing.”
–-Stephen King
“SLOB really smokes. It’s got muscle it hasn’t even used yet. It’s the place where old John D. used to work before Travis McGee got winded. Cain and Dutch Leonard and Jim Thompson and Jim Tully sing in these pages. Caniff’s rhythm and smart talk, Hemingway’s mean, Alfie Bester’s cinematography. It pulls the plow, this writing.”
–-Harlan Ellison
“Terrific! Rex Miller writes like a truck-driver tailgating you at 80 mph…. [Chaingang] induces genuine panic—-making you read faster than you wanted to—-too scared to go on, too terrified to stop.”
–-Graham Masterton
“Rex Miller is terrific. [Chaingang] scratches itches I didn’t know I had.”
–Marion Zimmer Bradley
“Graphic…unsettling…brutal…hypnotic…gritty …riveting!”
–Rave Reviews
“We need these periodic trips into the human heart of darkness. Rex Miller undertakes this journey with uncompromising language and story. This is no fairytale vision of evil. This is the real thing.”
-–Steve Rasnic Tem
“Literally mind-stunning, a Hitchcockian chase through one man’s modern underworld!”
-–John Coyne
“Words like powerful, visceral and monstrous don’t even begin to describe the kind of book SLOB is. There is a primal energy at work here that won’t quit. When you open this book you are grabbed by the throat, yanked down into darkness, and dragged along on a gut-churning ride. From there, it’s a nonstop journey to the final page.”
-–Thomas F. Monteleone
“Flashes of real brilliance…scenes so chilling, so repugnant, so seamlessly portrayed in their intensity that they can’t help but tear a reaction from the reader…Astonishing.”
-–Charles de Lint
“Cheerfully malevolent…[Chaingang] was an abused child who then went through the meat grinder of state care, became a murderer, a Vietnam vet and, finally, a serial killer…. Fans for whom Stephen King doesn’t write fast enough…should have a ripping good time.”
–-Publishers Weekly
“A tour de force…tasty as a blood sundae. The only question is, What does Killer Miller do for an encore?”
-–Alan E. Nourse
“Intense, ugly, effective, and eerily persuasive. Rex Miller is a writer to watch!”
-–Piers Anthony
