THE KILLING YARDS
Coming Fall 2026 from Crooked Lane Books
New York, 1993. Two-thousand murders a year, municipal services in free fall, a mayoral election coming fast. The city needs a place to forget itself. The city parties in Abattoir.
Jimmy Lettner runs the scene’s hottest nightspot. But success seeds envy, and rivals are moving ecstasy in his club. As a convicted drug trafficker who lost a daughter in a narco-fueled car wreck, Jimmy charges his partner Serge Thanakis with addressing the situation. But Serge is running a drug ring of his own, and after he kills a competing dealer, Abattoir falls under siege.
Violence quickly spirals. The NYPD closes in. A panicked Jimmy snorts mountains of cocaine and recruits deranged organized crime backup. Through it all, the dance floor stays packed. But how long can Jimmy’s reign as New York’s club king last?
Praise for THE KILLING YARDS
“Behold a fresh new voice in noir fiction. In the vein of Don Winslow and Abel Ferrara, former NYPD detective Jason Allison brings to life the seedy underbelly of 1990s New York City, its pulsating neon clubs and pitch-black alleys and brutal hedonism.”
I.S. Berry, Edgar award winning author of THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW
“A blistering tour de force debut from the sure hands of an author who knows the turf. I will read everything Allison writes."
Adam Plantinga, Edgar Award nominee and USA Today bestselling author of THE ASCENT and HARD TOWN
"The Killing Yards’ pulse-pounding portrait of New York City club culture is a cinematic work of gritty poetry. The psyches of the people here are rich and real; their dialogue snaps from the page. Allison deftly shifts from perspective to perspective, each chapter raising stakes like an igniter ticking, ready for explosion."
Chris Harding Thornton, USA Today bestselling author of PICKARD COUNTY ATLAS and LITTLE UNDERWORLD
“Jason Allison’s The Killing Yards is a grim, gritty, gripping mix of the mob, clubs, and drugs. His vision of Nineties-era New York is all bright dance floor lights and dark streets, with dialogue that pops off the page. A story of desperation, denial, and betrayal, it's a hell of a read from beginning to end.”
J. Todd Scott, author of THE FLOCK and THE FAR EMPTY
““An excellent crime novel revealing the cost of business in New York City’s nightclub empire, where ambition and betrayal reign. The Killing Yards by Jason Allison is a finely crafted narrative of interconnecting characters, with a concise and rapid style reminiscent of the best Elroy.”
John Woods, author of LADY CHEVY
“Jason Allison’s The Killing Yards is one of the most stunning debut novels I have ever read. It transports you to the nightclub setting of New York City. You can feel the sweat on the dance floor, the sexual charge between the patrons, and the ever-present threat of violence as the characters negotiate between the cops and criminals who run the system. Allison knows this world as a Bronx native who spent twenty years in the NYPD, and he portrays New York in all its complexity and monstrous beauty on the page as only a person who has lived there can. It reads like a James Ellroy novel set in the Big Apple.”
Steven Powell, author of LOVE ME FIERCE IN DANGER: THE LIFE OF JAMES ELLROY