Urban Pigs Press are delighted to announce the release of A.J. Stanton’s – Gutter Punch. Out today on Kindle and paperback. This crazy read delivers humour in a punch to gut.
Sam Carter is a struggling journalist who finds work as an unlikely PI. His journey takes him directly into the path of two wealthy and corrupt characters where Sam becomes caught up in a game of ‘Who’s dick’s bigger than the other dick?’. This compelling read follows up on the brilliant Sex Robots Must Die. Fans of Stanton’s will not be disappointed, and new ones are in for a treat.
This release is quite special for us in another way too. Gutter Punch marks the end of our releases from last year’s call. This has been our first run of novel publications and we are thankful to all of our authors and readers. We have a couple of other releases on the way but today is not the day for that news. Today belongs to A.J. Stanton!
Want to see what all the fuss is about? Then look no further than below for a glimpse of what you’re in for.
Gutter Punch
A.J. Stanton
Chapter one
Sam Carter felt around his lower regions and began playing with his semi-erect penis, although a few moments of this and it was abandoned with the full knowledge it would prove a fruitless task. He could taste a mixture of vomit and cheap whiskey on his teeth and his stomach wasn’t particularly impressed by either. He did believe, however, that there was just as much chance of him messing himself as there was of him being sick and was frightened by the prospect of both. He eyed beside his bed a glass of water and drank thankfully.
Sam made a slow, zombie-like dawdle to the bathroom and then, feeling slightly better, made his way to the lounge. Curled up on the sofa with a suit jacket draped over him was a pale looking young lawyer by the name of Ford.
Sam squatted on Ford’s legs in a successful bid to get him to sit up. He fumbled around under the sofa, eventually finding a crushed packet of cigarettes. Sam lit one up and took a long drag.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sam said, a puzzled look on his face.
‘You don’t remember?’ Ford replied, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. ‘I had just finished a long case. A couple of us decided to go for a quick drink in the bar around the corner from the court. Didn’t expect to see you in there. You were a mess, kept saying you were celebrating something and trying to force alcohol into me. I ended up having to take you home before you embarrassed me any further.’
‘I was celebrating,’ Sam said, letting out a cloud of acrid smoke. ‘I got fired yesterday.’
#
As soon as Sam had started at the newsroom, he found it deeply unrewarding. His work life consisted mostly of following leads and compiling reports of all the unbearably dull stories no one else wanted to touch. If the news programme was going to be short a few minutes, then it was Sam’s job to sift through the local papers for some sort of fluff. Human interest stories, whatever that meant, the most recent one having been about Mr. and Mrs. Gordon’s cat, Sebastian, which curled up and went to sleep in the laundry basket, only to end up getting stuffed into the washing machine and whacked on spin cycle, and still somehow managing to survive. Sam had to interview the family and get some good footage of the cat. He had done several of these stories. Cats plastered into walls, trapped under floorboards, set in concrete, and miraculously they all seemed to survive. A cat lasting three quarters of an hour in a washing machine mixed up with detergents and semi-boiling water seemed unlikely. Sam had quickly pieced together in his mind the real series of events. Mrs. Gordon, on finding the saturated corpse of her daughter’s cat had held down a deathly scream. She showed it to her husband, holding it at arm’s length despite the fact it was quite clean. Mr. Gordon had immediately rushed out to the nearest animal shelter for a replacement, stopping on the way to throw the dead one out the window and into a ditch. Sam had considered exposing this fraud. It would simply take some last-minute changes before airtime. But he didn’t. What would be the point? It wouldn’t achieve anything, except for upsetting an eight-year-old girl and possibly some cats. Instead, he had half-heartedly noted down the story while the Gordons, eager to be appearing on television, helpfully dunked Sebastian Mark II in the kitchen sink and then stuffed the startled looking kitty into the laundry basket. A dramatic reconstruction.
Sam was almost relieved yesterday afternoon when the boss had called him into his office. Sexfiend for all intents and purposes was the man’s name. He was a short, fat, balding bastard with a dynamic personality. Sam had stood there in Sexfiend’s luxurious office, wincing at the ferocity of the glower he was being subjected to.
‘Do you think I am stupid?’ Sexfiend asked, almost as if he wanted an answer.
‘No sir,’ Sam said, trying to sound sincere.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Sexfiend roared. ‘You may have gotten away with it for a long time, but no more. No fucking more you worthless piece of fucking shit.’
Sam knew exactly why Sexfiend was angry. He had expected to be “let go” a long while back but he had never been discovered. For about the last year, tiring of following stories and reporting what actually happened, Sam had begun just making things up. It had started quite small. Events minor celebrities supposedly attended. It later moved to made up politicians of non-existent countries dying in all manner of ways. Floods, executions, bear attacks and sometimes even natural causes.
‘I could have you killed,’ Sexfiend stated with a smile growing across his chubby face. ‘I should have you killed. God knows I’d like to. But instead, I am going to be kind. Clear your fucking desk and get out. But watch your back pal. I could have you killed so fast, you wouldn’t even know you were being killed.’
#
‘So, you really got fired?’ Ford said. ‘I knew you would, sooner or later. You were always turning up drunk because you’ve been hanging about with Sea-mouse too much. Your problem is you never take anything seriously’.
Sam began to switch off at this point. When Ford got going, he could berate people for hours. It was one of his character flaws.
Sam and Ford had been flatmates whilst they were at university. Ford was a conscientious law student that no one apart from Sam could tolerate. Sam on the other hand, spent his years at university in a drunken paradise. Occasionally mooching into lectures between bouts of heavy and sustained drinking with his oldest friend Sea-mouse. As soon as Ford had met Sea-mouse he had disapproved of the man. He stood for everything Ford disapproved of, and that in Ford’s mind was grounds for disapproval.
‘What are you going to do about work?’ Ford asked. ‘You ought to go job hunting as soon as possible.’
‘I don’t know,’ Sam answered. ‘I might take a couple of days off to rest before I start looking. I have a couple of contacts in the papers. I did a little bit of freelance for them. They’re only tabloids but I reckon I could get a job with one of them no problem. Or failing that, I think a couple of the investigators we’ve used in the past are hiring.’
Ford could barely believe his ears. How someone could take such a blasé attitude to a situation like this was beyond him.
‘Actually, thinking about it, I might leave it a couple of weeks.’
Urban Pigs Press 
Leave a comment