D*CKED: Dark Fiction Inspired by Dick Cheney

Is there any figure in politics more mysterious than Dick Cheney? Seemed like from day one he was holed up in an "undisclosed location." From wherever that was, he ran the show for eight years and through god knows how many quadruple bypass surgeries. The man is definitely an enigma.

So I was interested to see what the writers for D*CKED (ed. Kieran Shea, Greg Bardsley and Jedidiah Ayres) would come up with, how they would represent America's own Murderous Cyborg.

No problem with imagination here -- Dick morphs from a superhero to an S&M junkie to a troll to a statue to a sex toy... all while sporting that trademark snarl.

This is a cracking collection of stories by reliable crime fiction authors all with a unique take on The Veep. I particularly liked Rachel Canon's "Neighborhood Watch." A down-on-his-luck Cheney makes a voyage to a dystopian suburb, meeting up with some badass soccer moms. I hadn't read any of Canon's work before but I will definitely be on the lookout in the future.

In Cameron Ashley's hilarious "Codename: Balladeer," a catchy pop song sweeps the nation... and then finds its real calling as a device to torture prisoners into divulging information. And you thought waterboarding was bad.

Kieran Shea's "Anne Gets a Ride" is yet another example of why he's one of the best writers in crime fiction today. He takes the bus device from Speed, adds in Cheney as a super hero, and tells the story from the perspective of a vapid California girl. Brilliant.

Plenty of other good ones in here from Ken Bruen, Steve Weddle, Jimmy Callaway, Patti Abbott, Hilary Davidson and many more.