Stay Ugly

Eric is an ex-con bareknuckle boxer better known around his Chicago neighborhood as Ugly. He wants to shed his past build a life with his family but his past wont be so easily left behind. His junkie brother Joe has stolen $100K from a powerful drug dealer--and Uglys on the hook unless he hands Joe over. Which is gonna be hard considering he has no idea where Joe is. Ugly and his business partner Nicky hit the streets to find him each step taking Eric back into the violent life hes desperate to leave behind. Uglys done with it all. Hes pissed sad and exhausted but hes gotta keep moving if he wants any chance of Joe--and himself--getting out alive. Praise for STAY UGLY: Daniel Vlasatys Stay Ugly is a vivid visceral and bone-crunching tale of loyalty loss and redemption. --Paul D. Brazill author of Last Years Man and Man of the World Stay Ugly is raw and nasty in all the right places. Punch-drunk bareknuckle hardman Ugly is our tour guide across nocturnal Chicago and his quest to find his junkie brother is a bone-shattering bullet-strewn treat. This book fights hard and it fights dirty and Daniel Vlasaty has crafted a brutally entertaining dog-eat-dog thriller. Savage visceral stuff. --Tom Leins author of Repetition Kills You and The Good Book Daniel Vlasaty has a unique and recognisable voice in crime fiction. His dialogue crackles and his violence hurts. He creates a vivid world that youll find yourself fully immersed in as Ugly--sorry Eric--chases his junkie brother through a busy night in Rogers Park accompanied by his friend Nicky. Its a tale of loyalty familial binds and asks whether one man can outrun his checkered past especially when everyone around him is desperate to drag him back into it. --Paul Heatley author of Guillotine and Fatboy In Stay Ugly Daniel Vlasaty continually pushes the story forward compelling the reader to turn the page. This book is so good so beautifully written and so horrible in its consequences that Vlasaty succeeds in ways few writers would even attempt. I would say this novel is darkly evocative but what in Hell does it evoke? The earlier works of Vlasaty is my only answer. And that is a darkness I would encourage any reader of dark fiction to step into. --Rob Pierce author of Tommy Shakes Uncle Dust and With the Right Enemies Vlasatys latest gutter pulp gem has the propulsion of a meth head driving a race car thats on fire. Simultaneously over-the-top and romantically mundane equal parts Frank Bill and Sam Pink. --Kelby Losack author of Heathenish and The Way We Came In What makes Daniel Vlasatys Stay Ugly pack such a potent punch is its heart. And this isnt heart of champion or tenderhearted or even at his heart hes a good guy sentiment. Eric (AKA Ugly) isnt a good guy. He doesnt have some sacred street code hes ready to die for. Frankly he isnt going anywhere but six feet under. Just a question of when. That he knows someday hell go down and not get up again doesnt faze him. All that matters is that until that day hell take his punches and get back up and keep doing the best he can in a fight we all lose in the end. And that my friends is the stuff of poetry and legends. --Joe Clifford author of Junkie Love and the Jay Porter Thriller Series