Grave Markings

Grave Markings horror novel cover art
by Michael A. Arnzen
  • $15.95 Paperback
    ISBN: 978-1-935738-69-5

    US only, email
    for international rates


stokerawardwin-lgRaw Dog Screaming Press resurrects
the multi-award winning novel
that made reader’s skin crawl
with ungodly scrawl two decades ago.

Grave Markings follows the tortured mental breakdown of Mark Michael Kilpatrick—an artist driven to purge visions of hell from his tainted mind by permanently working his ink into the skins of unwilling victims…the flesh of both the living and freshly dead.

News reporter Roy Roberts finds himself drawn into an obsession with tattoo culture, at the same time as Kilpatrick’s own compulsions produce sicker and sicker masterpieces that attract media attention, twisting in a spiral that inevitably brings Roberts and his loved ones into Kilpatrick’s morbidly perverse universe, and the artist’s deadly inkgun turns toward them…

And the ink keeps spreading

Now, for the first time in trade paperback, readers can find out why this novel won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Critics Guild Award, and such widespread acclaim across the horror genre. Included in this special Twentieth Anniversary edition are 50 pages of insightful BONUS material by Arnzen: a new preface, five literary essays, and four short stories (two never before published) involving bikers, tattoo and terror.

What Are They Saying About Grave Markings

“An authentically painful read, which conveys a real sense of a mind and a culture dangerously out of control.” —Ramsey Campbell, Author

Grave Markings is a high-speed chase into madness, unpredictable and twisted as a mountain road, written by one of the most inventive and outrageous new talents in the horror genre.” —Karl Edward Wagner, Author

“Michael Arnzen pulls the reader into the world of Grave Markings with a vivid, surreal hook, then makes it impossible to escape as the nightmares are unveiled.  A great thriller.” —Sidney Williams, Author

“Michael A. Arnzen is a young twenty-something writer who, whether he realizes it or not, is building expectations in his readers for innovation and the honest examination of psyche. There is good reason to believe Arnzen will be writing breath-taking horror for a long time…For now we have Grave Markings. It is certainly one of the highlights in horror fiction this year.” —Cemetery Dance

“A Horse’s Mouth from hell.  A piercing look at art’s illegitimate underbelly.  Michael Arnzen is an excellent writer, and Grave Markings is a uniquely disturbing debut.” —Bentley Little, Author

“Arnzen’s debut is a remarkable one. Several of the scenes skittered across my brain like the tattoo needle would over a spasming bicep.  Arnzen could have easily titled this THE ILLUSTRATED MAN(IAC).” —Wayne Allen Sallee, Author