TOXICITY

Cover by Betty Rocksteady
  • Publisher: Post Mortem Press (1st Edition); Ghoulish Books (2nd Edition)
  • Publication Date: April 2014 (1st Edition); March 2024 (2nd Edition)

When Maddox Kane is released from prison, he has no idea what the world has become. His ex-wife’s hooked up with a heroin addict, his daughter’s busy burying dead bodies behind drugstores, and his brother’s being held prisoner by an abusive prostitute. Plus, apparently, there’s a new drug out on the street called Purple, and it’s going to destroy the world.

Darkly comedic and absurdly tragic, Toxicity is a tale of horrible things happening to horrible people.


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TOXICITY is about as over-the-top insane as anything you’ll read this year, but without ever sacrificing character or story. It’s a fast-paced, amusing, and wonderfully gross ride!”

—Jeff Strand, author of WOLF HUNT

“With TOXICITY Max Booth III has put together a rare story indeed. It’s quirky, surreal, laugh-out-loud funny, well peppered with unexpected moments, and above all, jaw-clenching intense. Highly recommended!”

—Benjamin Kane Ethridge, Bram Stoker Award winning author of BLACK & ORANGE

“Misfits, mayhem and Zooey Deschanel. Max Booth III’s foray into the underbelly of life is like being sucker-punched by Tarantino. He offers a world where Desperation is more than a state of despair, Jesus is a housefly determined to begin an apocalypse, and greed is a skewer that pierces the heart of the dammed.”

—Craig Wallwork, author of THE SOUND OF LONELINESS

TOXICITY seeps under your skin, infecting you with black comedy, shocking violence, and the stinking desperation of bad people rotting in the sun. And yet somehow, we still root for these dark souls—and that is the genius of Max Booth III.”

—Richard Thomas, author of STARING INTO THE ABYSS

“Quick-witted and outrageous, this book is truly not for everyone (i.e. those puritanical and/or sane). But if you get excited envisioning something that’s like ‘Pulp Fiction’ mixed with a dose of the supernatural and a wicked sense of humor, TOXICITY should top your reading list.”

—Eric J. Guignard, Bram Stoker Award nominated editor of AFTER DEATH…

TOXICITY is a gritty, raw, unvarnished descent toward the kind of redemption only a modern noir can offer. Where this ends, though, are some eerily timely places, with some rather rough characters you can’t help but become fascinated by. If the end of the world is coming, this is probably what’d it’d feel like.”

—John Palisano, author of NERVES