Dark City Underground: Review: "Brothers" by Ed Gorman & Richard Chizmar
Showing posts with label novellete. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novellete. Show all posts
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Anne R. Allen's Blog: The New Golden Age of Short Fiction: 12 Reasons to...
Anne R. Allen's Blog: The New Golden Age of Short Fiction: 12 Reasons to...: by Anne R. Allen I recently heard from a writer who said she felt disrespected by her writing group. They were all working on novels and m...
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Sample Sunday: a new excerpt from the locked room mystery "The Play Of Light And Shadow" by Barry Ergang
This week Barry shares a different excerpt from
his locked room mystery, "The Play Of Light And Shadow."
The novelette has gained very positive reviews, including one on the blog “At
The Scene Of The Crime,” which you'll find here.
THE PLAY OF LIGHT AND
SHADOW
by Barry Ergang
Literature professor Alan Driscoll,
on sabbatical from the university and tending bar in a Philadelphia pub, introduces university
colleague Dr. Barton Gaines, art historian, to Darnell, a private detective.
Gaines has recently purchased a painting titled Nomad by the artist Charles Riveau, and he and his wife are throwing a party
to celebrate the acquisition. Gaines fears that Riveau's former
colleague-turned-enemy, master thief Paul Marchand, will steal—and destroy—the
painting, as he has done to other Riveau works. Whether he'll also resort to
murder becomes another question.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Just to be
safe, let’s make a final check.”
He nodded and
let me precede him into the room, empty except for the benches, the paintings,
and the sculptures, silent except for our footfalls. Nomad still rested on its easel, placid and undisturbed but
disturbing to look at. Darnell entered and crossed the room as I opened the
closet. Except for the ladder, duster, and hose, it was the same narrow empty
space we had seen earlier. I shut the door.
“Everything
under control?” Darnell asked.
“Perfectly.”
Gaines drew in
his lips in an uncertain grimace. “I suppose it’s what they call ‘showtime.’”
We left the
gallery. Gaines locked the door and went to fetch his guests.
“Sorry I took so
long,” Darnell said, “but I had to find Chadwick, then chase him between the
kitchen and the deck to ask questions. He says everyone here today has worked
for him at least six months.”
Five minutes
later we heard a burble of voices, then Gaines and Marjorie came into view,
their guests an orderly procession behind them. Gaines turned and smiled at them
proudly but nervously. “I crowed enough in the living room; I won’t keep you
waiting any longer. Have a look at Nomad.”
He unlocked the
door, stepped aside, and the guests streamed into the gallery, Darnell and I at
the rear. The sound of the crowd was at first just a murmur, rippling and gradually
building in volume that erupted into a dissonant chorale of gasps and suppressed
cries. Someone, perhaps Carol, blurted, “Oh, God, no!” and someone demanded,
“Is this a joke, Bart?”
Gaines pushed forward
through the throng, and his voice silenced them with an agonized bellow:
“Marchand!” The name echoed and rang in that long high room, an invocation and
a curse. An adrenaline chill surged through me when I saw why. The gilt frame
still reposed on the easel, but it was empty now. On the floor below lay the
wooden stretcher from which the canvas had been removed.
A lengthy hush
enveloped the gallery as though an ethereal, malign presence at its margins
mocked our collective sense of invasion and loss. In an astonished whisper, Julian
Lakehurst put the exclamation point to it: “My God, he’s done it!”
The others roused; their murmurs and stirrings
made the room hum again with apprehension. Darnell swore, staring at the empty
frame. The brackets around his mouth deepened.
“Nobody got past us, Darnell,” I said
tightly.
Barry Ergang ©2014
The Play of Light and Shadow is available at Amazon and Smashwords,
along with some of Barry Ergang's other work, for a mere ninety-nine cents.
Formerly the Managing Editor of Futures
Mystery Anthology Magazine and First Senior Editor of Mysterical-E, winner of the Short Mystery Fiction
Society’s Derringer Award for the best flash fiction story of 2006, his
written work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic.
Monday, March 03, 2014
Smashwords Promotion
Smashwords is doing their annual "Read a e-book week." Many authors are participating and offering deeply discounted books. My short story collection Mind Slices which features tales of mystery, suspense, and more is available for free during this week long promotion.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/kevinrtipple
Enter the code RW100 at checkout to get it for free. If you do read the book, I would be very grateful for any review regardless of whether you love it, hate it, or something in-between.
While there make sure you pick up two books from Barry. He has offered for free The Play of Light and Shadow, a whodunit/howdunit; and PUN-ishing TALES: The Stuff That Groans Are Made On, a collection of "groaners," some of which involve crime and mystery.
Sunday, October 06, 2013
Sample Sunday: Excerpt from "The Play Of Light And Shadow" by Barry Ergang
Two Sundays ago Barry was in this spot sharing a funny short story from his book PUN-ishing Tales: The Stuff That Groans Are
Made On. If you have not read it yet, you can go here to read it. This week
Barry shared an excerpt from his locked room mystery The Play Of Light And
Shadow. The book has gained very positive reviews including this one here
on the blog “At The Scene Of The Crime.”
THE PLAY OF LIGHT AND SHADOW
by Barry Ergang
On quiet nights Darnell came into
Culhane’s and sat at a table or in a booth.
On busy nights he sat at the end of the bar, as far away from the
traffic as possible. He always had a book
with him, and wherever he sat he’d read, sip Scotch, and smoke. Sometimes he ordered dinner.
Tonight he sat at the bar. After pouring his drink, I glanced at the
book and asked: “What is it this week?”
He turned it over so I could see the
cover: The Sound and the Fury.
“Rereading an old favorite,” he
said.
I raised an eyebrow. “Faulkner.
Pretty unconventional for a private detective.”
He chuckled dryly. “You’re calling me unconventional,
Professor?”
“Good point,” I admitted.
A few months earlier, at the end of
the semester, I had begun a year’s sabbatical from teaching literature at City
University of Philadelphia and taken a job as a bartender at Culhane’s
Pub. The alternative profession, which I
had practiced as a graduate student, gained me unwanted notoriety among the
administration, faculty, and student body, but it got me away from departmental
politics and the hermetic insularity of academia and back into the “real” world
among people with everyday concerns.
Darnell
was a regular customer; literature was our common ground. He wasn’t inclined to small talk, but
discussions about books pierced his reserve and evoked a veiled passion.
A little over six feet tall, with an
athletic build that could run to fat if he weren’t careful, he was in his
mid-forties, with dark, gray-streaked hair and gray-blue eyes in a face of
hard-won stoicism. Deep brackets etched
the corners of his mouth, marking him, you sensed, as witness for half a
lifetime to tragedy and human darkness.
“How’s business?” I asked.
He tapped his book. “Let’s just say I have lots of time to read.”
“Well, I got a call today from
someone who could use a detective.”
“If it’s divorce work, I’m not
interested.”
“It’s more of a security matter.”
He lit a cigarette. “Talk to me, Professor.”
My explanation was fragmented by
customers and waitresses who needed orders filled. Darnell’s prospective client was one of my
university colleagues, Dr. Barton Gaines, Chairman of the Art History
Department. He’d phoned to invite my
wife and me to a party he was throwing the following Saturday afternoon to
celebrate an auction he’d won for a painting by Charles Riveau. My wife works for a large corporation and
would be out of town, but I said I’d be happy to attend. Gaines then voiced his brooding and abiding
concern for the painting’s safety. That
was when I first heard allusions to the shadowy Paul Marchand, Riveau’s nemesis
and Gaines’s hobgoblin—the catalyst for everything that happened later.
Gaines wanted to hire a high-priced
security agency but his wife Marjorie refused.
Hearing this, I said I knew a lone operative whose rates might be more
reasonable and who might agree to the job if he weren’t already engaged by
another client. Gaines had welcomed the
notion.
“Babysitting a painting,” Darnell
said, then shrugged. “Sounds like paid
reading time. Go ahead, set something
up.”
Barry Ergang ©2013
The Play Of Light And Shadow is one of a number of Barry Ergang's books available at Amazon and Smashwords. Barry continues to sell books from his personal library here and has quite a few good ones.
The Play Of Light And Shadow is one of a number of Barry Ergang's books available at Amazon and Smashwords. Barry continues to sell books from his personal library here and has quite a few good ones.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Novelette Review: "Shifting Is For The Goyim" by Elizabeth Zelvin
It is worth noting that many of the reviews give
away most, if not all, of the details behind the story. This review absolutely does
not. This review, unlike many others out there at Amazon and elsewhere, is safe
to read without ruining this very good novelette.
Far different in style and tone from the Bruce
Kohler Series written by author Elizabeth Zelvin is Shifting
Is For The Goyim recently released by Untreed Reads. Emerald Love is a
singer and a good one. Thanks to Michael, her boyfriend and fellow musician, she
has had several number one hits. Immensely popular she is now one of those one name
artists such as Cher, Madonna, etc.
She’s come a long way from her home in Pumpkin Falls, New York.
With crowd leaving for their homes she is now on the
way to her family home for Passover. She’s missed the last five by way of being
on tour, but there is no missing this one. For many reasons she will wish she
had in this tale of the paranormal, death, faith, and family relationships.
This is a sometimes dark story of pain and loss for
different from the often humorous Bruce Kohler Series. It is also
incredibly good and features a complicated character, Emerald Love, who is very
worthy of her own novel series. One hopes that such might be in the works based
on this very complicated and very short mystery tale.
Shifting Is For The Goyim
Elizabeth
Zelvin
Untreed
Reads Publishing
July
2012
E-Book
Only
Estimated
print length 31 pages
$1.50
Material supplied by the author in exchange for my
objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2012
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