Like good fiction? Love kids? Have I got a deal for you.

Make sure you read the whole post, kiddies. There’s a free story and a chance to win free stuff. You’ve got a chance to hit the good karma trifecta, so listen up.

There’s a new short fiction collection out – Lost Children: Protectors. I see your eyes glazing over already. Another short fiction collection, big deal. Yeah, well, this time, it kinda is.

See, this isn’t another self-pubbed deal by somebody you’ve never heard of. This is top-shelf stuff. Check out some of the contributors:

• George Pelecanos
• Andrew Vachss
• Joe R. Lansdale
• Charlie Stella
• Johnny Shaw
• Ken Bruen

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Jesus, O’Shea, what business do you have keeping company with that crowd? OK, fair enough. But you’re also thinking man, $4.99 just for stories from those six guys, that’s a freaking steal.

And it is. But you get those six stories and 35 more. Stories from some of the sharpest tools in the short crime fiction shed. I mean Patti Abbott, Keith Rawson, Ray Banks, Nigel Bird, Matt Funk, Todd Robinson, Steve Weddle, Dave White, Josh Stallings, Ian Ayris? They’ve all got game. Those are just the folks I know. And I’m really looking forward to reading the stories from the writers I don’t know yet. Because I know they are going to blow me away.

You know who else has game? Tom Pluck. Game and heart. Because he’s not just another author looking to squeeze out a little coin by pulling together an anthology and taking the editor’s cut. He’s put his heart and soul into this – and who knows how many hours – so that he can give every cent to PROECT – The National Association to Protect Children.

So that trifecta? You get guaranteed home runs from the big-name headliners. You get a butt-ton of great fiction from some new voices that maybe you didn’t know. You get it all for the price of about 1.25 gallons of gas, and your money goes to help protect kids.

Want a little taste? Here’s an audio file of yours truly reading Done for the Day, my humble contribution to the collection. If you like this story, you’re going to love the rest of them.

And I’m upping the ante. First five of you who e-mail your proof of purchase for PROTECTORS to dbocommunications@yahoo.com get a free copy of my short fiction collection OLD SCHOOL. 

Now it’s a quadfecta. How many chances you gonna get at one of those?

C’mon, it’s for the kids.