Harpooned, Sandra Seamans, MystericalE

by Patti Abbott

This pirate (or sort of) story, humorous and full of great detail, is a good example of why Sandra Seamans can write anything. And does. In a thousand or so words, she creates life.

‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ by MR James

by audreyrockstar

#11: ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, by MR James

Synopsis: A cautionary tale about ill-considered beach-combing

The scraping of match on box and the glare of light must have startled some creatures of the night — rats or whatnot — which he heard scurry across the floor from the side of his bed with much rustling. Dear, dear! the match went out! Fool that it is!

Sarah Monette’s The Bone Key is one of my favorite short story collections, and in the introduction to it, she mentions that this particular MR James ghost story was of special influence to her in writing her collection. She writes, “The beginning of that story is dry and mocking, simultaneously pedantic and satirizing pedantry, making no effort at concealing its own fictionality, and yet by the end, without ever visibly shifting tone, is has reduced its reader to a quivering wreck.”

No. No, it really hasn’t. Pedantic professor goes on holiday to the seashore, digs up mysterious whistle, blows it (as you do), has nightmares, is attacked by rogue bedsheet. The End.

So that happened.

Sex Crime by Katherine Tomlinson

by sandraseamans

Nothing is what it seems in the world of Desiree the succubus call girl.  A dead body, the cleanup, and the delightful twist at the end kept this reader chuckling to the very last word.  A great fun story.  You can find it here  http://a-twist-of-noir.blogspot.com/2012/01/interlude-stories-katherine-tomlinson.html

Burn Patterns, Michael C. White from MARKED MEN

by Patti Abbott

An arson investigator picks up a young woman on the road. Her pet, a snake, repulses him. They eventually exchange life stories and when she disappears, she leaves him a gift. This story manages to convey his whole sad life in 5000 words and although you begin feeling sorry for her, it is he who is the tortured one. Patti Abbott-still catching up.

“World of Gas,” Bonnie Jo Campbell fro AMERICAN SALVAGE

by Patti Abbott

One of the best collections I have read. Susan sells propane gas to men who are expecting the millennium. All of the men in her life are problems so she begins to hope for the event too just to get some peace. The brilliance lies in her unerring ear for dialogue and her gift for detail. Patti Abbott

Hardboiled Jesus: Vengeance is Mine, by John Rickards

by audreyrockstar

#10: Hardboiled Jesus: Vengeance is Mine, by John Rickards

Synopsis: What if Jesus Christ was a violent, abusive hardboiled detective? It would be AWESOME, that’s what.

“This is all your fault, you sack of shit. And now you’re going to pay.”

“Right,” said Jesus, and shot him in the face. Blood, bone and brain matter splattered across the street. Jesus lowered his gun and took a long drag on his cigarette.

Tight and well-managed little story that does just what the synopsis says, and does it well. All the religious cliches are taken in hand and given the finger. A smart and fun read that definitely made me interested in reading more of Rickards’ work.

Story available from the author’s website here.

Two Night’s Work by Iain Rowan

by Brian Lindenmuth

Two Night’s Work by Iain Rowan from the collection Nowhere to Go.

17/365

This is a first person POV story about a man in a pub who sits back and watches two small time con men try to take the pub owner for some money before deciding to intervene. Is he all that he seems? Does he have the owner’s best interests at heart?

The Locked House by Stephen Barr

by Arun

Source: 21st annual anthology of the ‘Best Detective Stories of the Year’ published in 1966.

Story Number: 17

What are some of the statements which a critic or a person who abhors locked room mysteries could put forth for his defense? They could read something like this:

“A locked room problem isn’t a mystery at all: it’s a self-contradiction”

“What the author asks the reader to believe is that a man is found murdered in a place from which the murderer couldn’t have escaped, and yet the murderer is not there. Writers have various ways of circumventing this. For example, the victim committed suicide in such a way as to resemble murder. Or the victim was dealt the fatal blow before he locked himself in. Or the murderer locked on the door on the inside while he was still on the outside.”

“The shoddiest solution of all is that he DID, in fact, get out, and his escape appears impossible only because of the author’s incomplete and therefore unfair description of the circumstances. None of these faces squarely up to the real dilemma – that the murderer got out when he COULD NOT. That, by definition, is absurd.”

Looks like the author set himself the task to break their defenses by providing this tightly knit locked room murder which does not fit any of the categories mentioned above. This is a story where a man has been murdered in a locked house (decapitated body in the living room with the axe used for the deed in the underground cellar), the murderer is not present in the house but at the same time, the murderer did not leave the room! If Dr. Fell gave us 7 categories under which to categorize all the possibilities of a locked room murder, Stephen Barr brilliantly instructs us that this method could very well be the eight. This story was written in 1965 but a variation of this method was used recently in one of the episodes of Jonathan Creek. It would be really interesting to come across a few more.

Den of Iniquity by Lori A. Lake

by Barb Goffman

17/366 from the anthology Once Upon A Crime edited by Gary R. Bush and Chris Everheart (Nodin Press 2009)

This is the story of a woman who finds the man who molested her as a child and cooks up some revenge. It was a good story with some well-written suspense, though I was hoping for a stronger twist at the end.

“Women” by Cao Naiqian

by kattomic

“Women” by Cao Naiqian

01.17.12

Story 17/366

This story appears in the collection There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night. The author, a Renaissance man who has been working as a cop for decades, has published a number of novels in addition to his short fiction, which tends toward short, slices of life that read like anecdotes a neighbor might tell you. Set in Wen Clan Caves, a fictional version of a poor village of cave dwellers near Inner Mongolia, “Women” is the story of a disobedient wife disciplined by her new husband. The language has been translated artfully (although the translator admits that getting things exactly right was hard) and some of the simple language is extremely evocative, like this description, “…whose beard resembled the stubble left on graves grazed by sheep.”  The stories in this collection are mostly very short, sometimes not even two full pages, so it’s great to dip into when you have a minute or two free.

See you tomorrow!