Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey’s fifth Sandman Slim adventure. James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, has lost the Qomrama Om Ya, an all-powerful weapon from the banished older gods. Older gods who are returning and searching for their lost power. The hunt leads Stark to an abandoned shopping mall infested with tribes of squatters. Somewhere in this kill zone is a dead man with the answers Stark needs. All Stark has to do is find the dead man, recover the artifact, and outwit and outrun the angry old gods—and natural-born killers—on his tail. But not even Sandman Slim is infallible, and any mistakes will cost him dearly.