Niall Howell's Only Pretty Damned is a taut noir that takes you behind the big top, revealing rough and tumble characters, murderous plots, and crooked schemes designed to keep Rowland’s World Class Circus afloat for another season. When Toby, former trapeze artist turned disgruntled clown, begins seeing Gloria, a young and beautiful dancer longing for a bigger role under the spotlight, his hardboiled past resurfaces. Can he live without Genevieve, his ex-trapeze partner and lover? What ruthless actions will he take to regain his position as the headlining act? And will Toby’s past repeat itself as he tries to untangle the ropes that bind him and take a leap to roaring applause?

Niall Howell was born and raised in Calgary, where he still resides. His short fiction has been published in The Feathertale Review and FreeFall and he holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Mount Royal University, and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Calgary. He enjoys playing bass, and obsessively collects records and comics. Only Pretty Damned is a part of the Nunatak First Fiction Series.

Niall Howell's profile page

• Short-listed, Sixth Annual Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize - Literary Fiction Category

"Howell has penned a slow-burning piece of crime fiction, where Rowland’s grimy circus serves as a microcosm of the world at large—a place where unlikable characters are groomed to make a killing, whether inside the tent or out."
~ Booklist

"Only Pretty Damned is a character-driven noir that throws the reader into the backstage crises of a traveling circus. Amidst the tension, the backstabbing, and the long-held resentments of performers toward one another, the reader is brought into Toby's taut and colorful world. You can almost smell the popcorn emanating from the crowds watching."
~ Matthew Fowler, Mystery Scene

"[S]olid from the first sentence—and this from someone who loathes the circus."
~ Andrew Wilmot, SubTerrain

"Only Pretty Damned is a stark, powerful noir, steeped in the stifling heat of the American South and building slowly, inexorably, to a boil."
~ Robert J. Wiersema, Quill & Quire

"This is a gritty novel that takes noir seriously."
~ Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail

"Niall Howell crafts a convincingly gritty big-top underworld full of shady entertainers and unscrupulous grifters."
~ Sheldon Birnie, The Winnipeg Free Press

"Only Pretty Damned announces the arrival of a formidable new talent in Canadian literature."
~ Mike Thorn, FreeFall Magazine

"[T]his deftly scripted and thoroughly reader engaging story showcases the writer's genuine flair for originality, memorable characters, and more plot twists and turns than a carnival roller coaster."
~ Midwest Book Review

"[Howell] captured me from the first sentence and never fully let me go."
~ Cosy Up With Kathy blog