Cliche Books in Order

The Cliché books pick up the twisted life of Calvin Court, first introduced in Numb. Calvin is a massage therapist with a history of depression, drinking too much, and making terrible choices about the people he trusts. In Numb, those choices pull him into a black market world catering to the rich and depraved. Cliché asks what happens after a man like that survives his first nightmare.

Here, Calvin is forced into The Track, an underground club where the ultra wealthy bet on elaborate death games. The victims, known as “ponies,” are dropped into carefully staged scenarios that look a lot like the horror and action movies the bettors grew up on. A wheel spins, a setting is chosen, and everyone watches to see how long the pony lasts.

Each episode in the series feels like its own savage little production. One might lean into barroom violence and back-road grit, another into slasher-movie territory, another into cat and mouse chases with cameras rolling. Calvin is supposed to play his part, die on cue, and give the audience the familiar thrills they paid for.

Of course, he does not cooperate. Calvin is damaged, but he is also sharp, funny in a bleak way, and very hard to kill. The fun of the series lies in watching him study each “script” The Track hands him and then look for loopholes. He fights back using his wits as much as brute force, turning stock horror setups into something far stranger.

Around him, Menapace builds out a small cast of recurring figures, including handlers, fellow captives, and people who blur the line between victim and villain. Loyalties shift fast in a place where survival can depend on playing to the crowd one moment and knifing a rival the next. The Track itself becomes a character, an ever-changing maze of rooms, cameras, and hidden rules.

Tone-wise, Cliché sits somewhere between grindhouse and darkly comic thriller. The violence is graphic, but the series also pokes fun at the very tropes it uses, from killer-on-the-loose cliches to reality-show confessionals. You can start directly with Cliche: Episode One or read Numb first to see how Calvin got broken before The Track decided to turn him into a star.