“Compulsively, enviably superb. THE ONLY CRIMINAL is a marvel!
Lucas brilliantly weaves wit, romance and
glorious wisdoms with maestro cool.”
- R.C. Matheson (Savages)
New York, NY: (October 3, 2024) “I tried to sell this book as a New York literary agent for over two decades, but publishers just didn't get it. They said it was a prose version of a graphic novel. But it was ahead of its time,” explained Riverdale Avenue Publisher Lori Perkins. “It has haunted me for years and when I finally had my own publishing company, I was thrilled to be the one to bring it out into the world.”
The premise of this surreal novel is that in an alternate, naïve world, there is only one mythic, larger-than-life criminal, who is the subject of all the world’s daily news, and somehow involved in all its art and entertainment. No one has ever see his face and lived. The story is told through the eyes of Dr. Paul Vaguely, a psychologist who analyzes The Only Criminal’s deeds and counsels his victims. One day, The Only Criminal disappears without explanation and it becomes apparent that this world can’t survive without him.
“THE ONLY CRIMINAL has been incubating in me since early 1977,” author Tim Lucas explained. “I’ve finished it many times but it was never quite complete; even as it went through the final proofreading stages, it continued to evolve right through the final pass. Maybe it took this long for the time to be right for it. It makes sense now in more ways than it would have done 40, 30, 20 or even 10 years ago.”
He continued, “Today I’m holding the finished product in my hands for the first time. Writing it, seeing it come to fruition, has been one of the great adventures of my life. It’s a fable about obsessive-compulsive people who live in fear and isolation, a fantasy that’s very pertinent to the world we live in, the world we’ve inherited. It’s dark, it’s funny, and also a love story, and there are many ways it can be interpreted. I hope it finds its audience and stimulates a lot of discussion, or even debate.”
About the Author
TIM LUCAS is the author of four well-received novels: Throat Sprockets (1994), The Book of Renfield: A Gospel of Dracula (2005, revised 2023), The Secret Life of Love Songs (2021) and The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes (2022). Throat Sprockets, which is included in Jones & Newman’s Horror: Another 100 Best Books and was selected by Rue Morgue as one of 50 essential alternative horror novels, is set to be published in an expanded 30th anniversary edition by Valancourt Books. The revised edition of The Book of Renfield, published by Riverdale Avenue Books, won the 2023 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Classic Monster Fiction.
