"It is easy to see why Father Figure has become an underground classic over the years. It is a dark, extremely disturbing but completely gripping suspense thriller with a strongly erotic subtext...Moore is an extremely talented writer with a gift for pushing the reader's emotional buttons...certainly liable to become a cult classic, and deservedly so."

-Editorial Review

South of Anchorage, accessible only from a muddy road off Seward Highway, lies the town of Lodgepole, Alaska. After midnight, among the blueberry bushes of White Birch Park, a man crawls on top of a woman and begins making love to her. As her orgasm rises he puts his hands around her throat, shutting off her air. She struggles, not to stop him, but to stop herself from trying instinctively to pull his hands off her throat. As the top joints of his thumb meet at the front of her throat she comes, her cry of orgasm ricocheting around inside her forever.

Daryl Putnam, handsome, bookish, wakes up from a nightmare and decides to do something he hasn't done in years. Take a walk outside at night. Down in the park, at the lime green shores of Little Muncho Lake, he comes across the body of the strangled woman.

The next morning, at the coffee shop of the hospital where he works, Daryl meets Sally, a pretty, dark-haired girl. He's intelligent, she's outgoing. What they have in common is both are living lonely lives. Until today.

Also in the hospital coffee shop, shaking half a can of black pepper onto his tomato soup, is Sam Rudolph, a fiftyish man with eyes like an angry dog, who has spent over twenty years quietly manipulating events in Daryl and Sally's lives to have this seemingly chance encounter among the three of them occur.

And who is actually a lot older than fifty.


About the Author: "Moore's work is consistently fascinating, original and devastating. His characters speak to you from whatever hell they inhabit, with clear, unambiguous voices." - Trevor Denyer Ralph Robert Moore is a British Fantasy Society nominee whose dark fiction has been characterized as "morbidly graphic." He's been published in America, Canada, England, Ireland, India and Australia in a wide variety of genre and literary magazines and anthologies, including Black Static, Shadows & Tall Trees, Midnight Street, Chizine, and Sein und Werden. His books include the novels Father Figure, As Dead As Me, and Ghosters; and the short story collections Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood. His second collection, I Smell Blood, tied with Justin Isis' I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like for Peter Tennant's award of Best Short Story Collection of 2011. "...If I were to do a 'Top Thirty Short Stories of 2011' list, they would dominate it... Each is a superb stylist and each has a unique voice...Moore crafts tales that bristle with attitude and energy..." "I Smell Blood, Ralph Robert Moore's second short fiction collection, reinforces his reputation, amongst those in the know, that here we have a genre-storytelling giant in our midst." - AJ Kirby "Tired of the usual suspects? Bored with the same old genre clichés? Then follow my advice and read Ralph Robert Moore, a hell of a writer whose work is provocative and refreshing, never ordinary, always imaginative and graced by a compelling narrative style...Moore has all the features of a great writer: he conceives original plots, creates credible characters and makes them speak plausible dialogues, and, most of all, is a terrific storyteller. Try him, you won't regret it." - Mario Guslandi "An excellent writer." - Gary McMahon Ralph Robert Moore's website SENTENCE at www.ralphrobertmoore.com features a wide selection of his writings, including the full text of his novel Father Figure and over a dozen short stories, more than ten years of his online diary entries, essays, recipes, videos, and other features. His Facebook page is located at www.facebook.com/ralph.r.moore. Moore and his wife Mary live in Dallas, Texas.