In the spirit of Kafka and Hunter S. Thompson, James Hanna pens twenty-one stories that were first published in journals seeking tales of darkness and wry humor. The stories include a peace officer who passes to the afterlife and discovers that Richard Nixzon is his guide spirit ("I Am Not a Crook"), a playboy who bonds with the ghost of a women who died long ago ("Little Darling"), and an over zealous cop who goes too far when he busts patrons in an adult movie theater ("Busting Willie Sherman").

Other stories include two brothers who fall prey to calamitous visions while playing fantasy baseball ("The World Baseball League"), a sex addict who stymies the law by hiding behind the flag ("USA"), and a father who takes his son to a brothel on his seventeenth birthday ("The Time Dad Took Me to a Whorehouse"). 

Readers' Favorite Awards states, "I learned about James Henna when I first read his hilarious novel, Call Me Pomeroy, and have been on the lookout for anything he writes because of the humor in his writing and the exceptional characters. Shackles and More Gripping Tales is a collection of his short stories and they are some of the finest I have read. Character-driven and infused with the author’s signature for humor and tight prose, they present well-developed and gorgeous characters and put them into real-life situations."

Booktopia states, "Extraordinary author James Hanna gives us his second collection of short stories--all of them eerily alluring yet packing a humorous or Kafkaesque wallop. Relying on his police and prison experiences, Hanna is able to craft realistic stories involving deviants as well as those who guard them, yet these stories are never police procedurals. Hanna has a Hunter S. Thompson flair that shows both the socially appalling as well as the underbelly of the 21st century and yet he delivers the wry humor to ferry us all across life's turbulent river."

Readers' Favorite Awards rates Shackles and More Gripping Tales 5/5 stars. https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/shackles-and-more-gripping-tales

Online Book Club rates Shackles and More Gripping Tales 4/4 stars. https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=127125