John Shirley. Spider Moon (2002) 170 pp.
Things go very wrong all at once for Slim Purdoux, a literary fiction editor at a San Francisco publishing house. On the day he finds out he is being transferred to New York, he gets a call telling him that his teenage son has just died of tainted designer drugs. After visiting the hospital, Slim returns to work and walks into a bloodbath caused by an alienated, gun-toting employee. When the police arrive, they mistake Slim—who is, himself, an ex-con and ex-addict—for the killer and he flees, determined to hunt down the dealers he feels are responsible for his son’s death.