Market Call Facebook -- One Eyed Press

Shotgun Honey is relaunching this and they want novellas 8k to 30K. More info at  https://submissions.shotgunhoney.com/publication/one-eye-press/ 

Short Story Wednesday Review: Bleed American by John Kenyon

  

While Facebook is problematic these days, especially with all the AI moderation garbage and AI fake generated pages and other issues, every now and then, the Facebook Memories deal is worth the slog into the past. Such is the case here with this review on a story from September 2011.

 

I have always been seriously annoyed by folks who felt it was okay to hang the American flag behind the couch, thumb tack the flag to the dining room wall, etc. Apparently, no nonsense Foley feels the same way in “Bleed American” published at Shotgun Honey yesterday. It isn’t just about the flag. Principle is very important and apparently Kyle does not get it in this short story written by John Kenyon. A quick and good read well worth your time.

 

Surf over to Shotgun Honey, if you haven’t already, at https://shotgunhoney.com/fiction/bleed-american-by-john-kenyon/  and read “Bleed American.” It isn’t the only good short story there. Just the most recent. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2011, 2025

Shotgun Honey: Submissions, Queries, and Patrons, Oh my!

 Shotgun Honey: Submissions, Queries, and Patrons, Oh my!

Shotgun Honey: Smaller Fries by Beau Johnson

 Shotgun Honey: Smaller Fries by Beau Johnson

Shotgun Honey: Comics’ll Break Your Heart: Barbarian with a Gun (1994) Max Cage

 Shotgun Honey: Comics’ll Break Your Heart: Barbarian with a Gun (1994) Max Cage

Do Some Damage: The Nick Kolakowski Interview

Do Some Damage: The Nick Kolakowski Interview: "This book clicked in perfectly at 35,000 words, which is right in my happy zone of full oxygen saturation. It was the perfect length f...

Little Big Crimes Review: Two Birds, One Todd by Karen Harrington

Little Big Crimes: Two Birds, One Todd, by Karen Harrington:   "Two Birds, One Todd," by Karen Harrington, in Shotgun Honey. This is the second appearance by Harrington in my column this yea...

Shotgun Honey Flash Fiction: Chemo Demo by Patricia Abbott

Shotgun Honey Flash Fiction: Chemo Demo by Patricia Abbott

Flash Fiction: Right Down the Line by Garnett Elliott (Shotgun Honey)

Flash Fiction: Right Down the Line by Garnett Elliott (Shotgun Honey)

The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: Short Story Month: Paul Lees-Haley, Bobbi A. Chukran

The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: Short Story Month: Paul Lees-Haley, Bobbi A. Chukr...: In 2013, StoryADay.org proclaimed May International Short Story Month . The SMFS spin on festivities is to highlight one or more members&#...

The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: Short Story Month: Paul Lees-Haley, Jan Christense...

The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: Short Story Month: Paul Lees-Haley, Jan Christense...: In 2013, StoryADay.org proclaimed May International Short Story Month . The SMFS spin on festivities is to highlight one or more members&#...

Shotgun Honey: "Noche de Milagros" by Garnett Elliott

Shotgun Honey:  "Noche de Milagros" by Garnett Elliott

A High Ridge Homecoming by Sarah M. Chen (Shotgun Honey)

 A High Ridge Homecoming by Sarah M. Chen  (Shotgun Honey)

(Belated) Crime Fiction Friday: “Dead Pimp in a Trunk” by Paul D. Brazill (MysteryPeople)

This came through yesterday while Sandi and I were enjoying the palatial surroundings and service of the transfusion room at Medical City Dallas Hospital.....

 (Belated) Crime Fiction Friday: “Dead Pimp in a Trunk” by Paul D. Brazill (MysteryPeople)

Interrogation: Angel Luis Colon ( S.W. Lauden Writing and Drumming in Los Angeles)

Interrogation: Angel Luis Colon ( S.W. Lauden Writing and Drumming in Los Angeles)

2015 Ohioana Book Festival Follow Up

2015 Ohioana Book Festival Follow Up

Via Paul Brazill: A Story For Saturday

A Story For Saturday: The Return Of The Tingler by Paul D. Brazill

Sample Sunday: Excerpt from "They Die in Eight Minutes" by Peter DiChellis

Awhile back I read The Shamus Sampler and enjoyed it quite a lot as you can see from the review here. After my review went up in various places, Peter wrote me and thanked me for the review. I made an offer –as I have done with other authors I have read and liked---for him to come be a part of things here with a Sunday Sample. Peter expressed interest and then later followed through (a rarity in of itself) with the below piece. Bit different than what we normally do here…..

They Die in Eight Minutes

by Peter DiChellis

Tick, tick . . . 11:52pm. They die in eight minutes.

Shadows crept across the outside walls of the house. Moonlight. Hand signals. Whispers.

Cops. Three slipped to the front door. Two sneaked to the back.

“Ready.”

Ready just in time, Sheriff’s Detective Benton Hammel thought. They die at midnight the man had promised. Not a second sooner, not a minute later. The man’s ex-wife, stepson, daughter-in-law, all of them. Dead at midnight.

Narcissistic psychopath, Hammel figured. Precise, cold, game player.

“Careful,” he’d whispered to his team moments ago. “The guy won’t kill his family until midnight, but he’ll kill us anytime.”

Tick, tick . . . 11:53.

Hammel had already briefed the team on the suspect, situation, and the isolated location. He had pushed them hard and they’d raced here, to this secluded housing development at the far edge of the county, after an anonymous caller alerted cops to the address. Hammel knew the area, had been house hunting nearby last month. Without that lucky break, and Hammel’s swift reaction, nobody could have arrived in time to save the family.

“Bust it open,” Hammel ordered.

The front door cracked off its hinges. Then the back door.

The cops’ flashlights dotted the pitch-black rooms as they hustled through, searching.

“Clear! Clear!”

“All clear!”

“Check for a basement,” Hammel instructed.

“No basement.”

“Attic.”

“No attic.”

“Backyard, garage, outbuilding, anything!”

“Nothing. Nothing. Nobody here.”

Wrong. They are here, Hammel calculated. All of them. Hidden somewhere in this dark unsold house in an abandoned tract of unfinished new homes. At 427 Maple. A perfect spot for a midnight killing.

Tick, tick . . . 11:57.

End of sample. Click here to read the rest of the story free at Shotgun Honey.

Peter DiChellis ©2014

Peter DiChellis writes short mystery-suspense fiction. His sinister tales appear in a handful of publications, most recently at Shotgun Honey, Over My Dead Body!, and in The Shamus Sampler private eye anthology. (Coming soon: A story in Plan B Mystery Magazine’s Volume III Anthology.) For links to his published stories, visit his Wordpress site Murder and Fries at http://murderandfries.wordpress.com/

Review: "Flash, Flash Bang, Bang: 7 Flash Crime Stories" by R.J. Spears

These 7 Flash Crime Stories that were previously published at Shotgun Honey, Out of the Gutter, and Flashes in The Dark, share a common theme of desperation. Desperation makes these characters do things that they might not have done otherwise. It could also just as easily be argued that desperation drove them to do what their natural natures would have compelled them to do anyway. Desperation might just have given these characters that slightest of slight nudges by a certain middle finger to tip the precarious balance.

“Belly or the Head” opens the collection with the question that many of us first heard some variation of on the playground years ago. So did the narrator who is hearing it now in terms of a gun held by the main enforcer of the Galvaso Family, Frankie the Bull.

Jerry is just looking for “A Way Out” of a bad situation. A man has to do what he has to do for the family.

“What You Don't Know” can change everything. Supposedly this guy named Block had been a Marine at one time, but Frank is not impressed. He doesn't care either as he is there to collect the debt owed to Mr. Galvin.

Many of us have been taught in church over the years to hate the sin, not the sinner. Clearly, “Hate the Sinner” takes a different spin on that concept with fairly predictable results.

Willard hasn't made it to bed yet. The 76 year old man might be sleeping in the front of the TV in the family room, but the Remington .310 makes the point it is “The Waiting Game.”

Terry and Chuck have a major bust on their hands. Drugs, money, and the three idiots they caught. It could be their ticket off street patrol and into detective grade work in “Or What.”

Some hunters kill for the meat to fill their freezers and take care of their families. Others kill because the want to bag “Trophies.”

Despite the frequent typos throughout Flash, Flash Bang, Bang, these seven flash stories provide rapid bursts of entertainment. The desperation is all too real to the reader as are the characters themselves. Not light reading in terms of the subject matter contained inside, these stories will tend to stick with you after this quick read is finished.

Flash, Flash Bang, Bang: 7 Flash Crime Stories

R.J. Spears

http://rjspears.com/index.html

Self-Published

April 2013

ASIN: B00CB8H3V8

E-Book (estimated print length 18 Pages)

$0.99

Material was picked up during the author’s recent free book promotion.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2013

Short Story Review: “Crack The Bat” by Jack Bates

It is one thing to swing the bat at a baseball. Far different thing to swing the bat at a guy’s head as “Crack the Bat” by Jack Bates makes clear.  Far different thing even if you don’t connect. After all you do it to send a simple message that any dummy should understand.

Like everything else on the Shotgun Honey website, the read is short and packs a punch. One wouldn’t expect any less from the site or author Jack Bates.  It is another very good story that features lots of character, action, and meaning in a compact tale.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2012