In the classic noir tradition of "Have Gun, Will Travel," Rachel Pollack—one of the world's foremost authorities on the Tarot—gives us the tale of Jack Shade, an occult shaman for hire. Jack Shade has a secret, and this hidden part of his past sends him on a journey through time and space and a great number of metaphysical doorways. From the cosy poker table in the eleventh floor apartment of the Hotel de Reve Noire to the ethereal Forest of Souls to the faded houses along the Gold River, Jack flows in and out of this world. Even when his own duplicate hires him to kill himself, Jack is mercury in motion. Jack the Nimble. Jack the Quick.

The Fissure King: A Novel in Fire Stories collects the four existing Jack Shades novellas and shows us Jack's final trick—one last story that finally reveals Jack's true nature.

Only Rachel Pollack, one of the world's greatest authorities of tarot and an award-winning novelist and comic book writer, could dream of someone as mischievous and mythopoeic as Jack Shade. The King is dead. Long live the King.