.Tom Epperson's second novel, SAILOR, will be published by Tor/Forge in the summer of 2011.  At the beginning of the book, a young woman and her 10-year-old son are hiding out in the Witness Protection Program in a small town in Oklahoma.  Gina has married into a prominent New York Mafia family, and her testimony has sent her abusive husband and some of his associates to prison.

 Now she's got a million-dollar contract on her head.  A crooked U.S. marshal tips off the mob as to her whereabouts.  She barely escapes a mob hit man, and she and her son Luke flee across the country.  They wind up in a small Southern California beach town, where they are befriended by a mysterious mild-mannered guy named Gray.

 Gray tells Gina he's been recently discharged from the Navy, and now is just drifting around.  Gina tells Gray that she and Luke have come to California on a vacation.

 Meanwhile, six expert killers leave a trail of blood and horror as they hunt across America for Gina.  When they finally show up in the peaceful little beach town, Gray finds out who Gina really is--and Gina learns the astonishing truth about Gray.

 This quiet, gentle young man has a violent past he's been trying to put behind him.  Yet if he's to save Gina and Luke from the mob assassins, he'll have to use every deadly trick he's ever learned.  SAILOR brings the simple nobility of SHANE into the brutal blood-drenched world of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

Watch this space for upcoming events.