Barry Ergang: The Play Of Light And Shadow

Barry Ergang’s excellent mystery, The Play Of Light And Shadow, is now available in both print and digital formats. Previously only available in digital format, Barry has made a print edition now available and both editions feature the new snazzy cover. You can find it on Amazon in both formats and digital only at Smashwords.

Synopsis:

A party at the home of a wealthy couple to celebrate the recent acquisition of a valuable painting results in the painting's theft from a locked room under constant observation, and the subsequent murder of one of the guests. Is the culprit a legendary master thief out for revenge? Darnell, a no-nonsense private detective and Alan Driscoll, a college professor turned bartender, team up to investigate in this whodunit/howdunit. Plus an article about how the novelette came to be written: "Writing THE PLAY OF LIGHT AND SHADOW."

THE FINAL HOURS of the Smashwords End of Year Sale

These are the final hours of the Smashwords End of Year Sale. 2017 has been a very bad year in so many ways. Go pick up a book and make the real world go away for a little while.

Weighted down by holding his Derringer Award in one hand while he held his dog, Duncan, in the crook of his other arm and hand and thus was only able to type with his nose, Barry Ergang  put his books at a reduced price. This includes his whodunit/howdunit “The Play of Light and Shadow” which, surprisingly, is not about being strapped on a concrete floor in an abandoned Texas warehouse while the August sun comes through the grimy windows and sombrero wearing rats observe by way of lounging around on several wooden pallets.  You can find his books at Smashwords.

For those who always said I was brainless I used an image from one of my several MRIs back in 2010 for the cover of my short story collection.  Mind Slices: A Collection of New and Previously Published Stories.  Most folks who have read it and seem to have a brain have liked it though one person who didn’t was apparently so devastated by the experience he never reviewed another book on Amazon. You can do better!  The book is available for FREE during the Smashwords' year-end sale from December 25th to January 1st. If you choose to pick it up and read it, please review it as you see fit.

It Has Begun!--Smashwords End Of Year Sale

You may have seen a post by me on social media regarding the Smashwords End of Year sale that started today. If not, you missed my promotional efforts the last couple of days. Not to worry, as the sale started today on Christmas Day and runs through the end of the year.

Weighted down by holding his Derringer Award in one hand while he held his dog, Duncan, in the crook of his other arm and hand and thus was only able to type with his nose, Barry Ergang  put his books at a reduced price. This includes his whodunit/howdunit “The Play of Light and Shadow” which, surprisingly, is not about being strapped on a concrete floor in an abandoned Texas warehouse while the August sun comes through the grimy windows and sombrero wearing rats observe by way of lounging around on several wooden pallets.  You can find his books at Smashwords. 

For those who always said I was brainless I used an image from one of my several MRIs back in 2010 for the cover of my short story collection.  Mind Slices: A Collection of New and Previously Published Stories.  Most folks who have read it and seem to have a brain have liked it though one person who didn’t was apparently so devastated by the experience he never reviewed another book on Amazon. You can do better!  The book is available for FREE during the Smashwords' year-end sale from December 25th to January 1st. If you choose to pick it up and read it, please review it as you see fit.

Sample Sunday: Excerpt from "STUFFED SHIRT" by Barry Ergang

Barry Ergang is back this week with an excerpt from his short story e-book STUFFED SHIRT.

STUFFED SHIRT

by Barry Ergang

Label it instinct, intuition, or clairvoyance—when I met Theron Claymore, I immediately sensed a predator in our midst.

When he strode into the department alongside Haskell, art director at Danforth Advertising, I thought Claymore was a model. Tall and blond, with appraising slate-blue eyes, he carried himself with the erect confidence one associates with a California surfer. He lacked only the deep suntan. Sensing his superficiality, I was astonished when Haskell announced him as the newest member of our ranks.

Claymore gave the room and the occupants of its glassed cubicles a conquistadorial scrutiny. Haskell then individually introduced him to us.

“This is Eric Dennison,” Haskell said, smiling benevolently beneath his heavy mustache, “our senior artist.”

Despite my repulsion, I shook his hand and murmured, “Nice to meet you.”

Within a short time my initial assessments were confirmed. Claymore’s work had a draftsmanlike competence but lacked the passion, if such a term may be used with regard to advertising, necessary to our type of illustration. Haskell, however, apparently took to it. Perhaps Claymore’s greatest artistry was his ability to sell himself despite the charming sophistry of the product.

Indeed, charm was his biggest commodity and he used it like a chameleon, adapting himself to suit the various agency personalities with whom he had to contend. His good looks and forceful manner endeared him to many of the women, but he was equally adept at bantering with the men. He had none of the newcomer’s reserve and quickly became the focal figure in the art department, magnet for the irreverent remark or salacious joke. Tales of the women he purportedly bedded were incessant.

Most of it I was able to ignore. In my five years at Danforth, I had for self-protective reasons kept distant from my colleagues, which allowed me to work with a relative freedom from interruption. What I could not ignore was Claymore’s camaraderie with Haskell, my immediate superior. Their time together was not spent exclusively on matters of agency business. They lingered in the corridors exchanging jokes and stories, they went out for drinks after hours, they lunched together—often with other department heads. During my tenure I had never socialized with the upper echelons; Claymore exerted a disproportionate amount of time insinuating himself into their circles.

My mother would have been appalled. When she returned to the workplace after my father died, she performed her duties diligently and reliably but shunned the intra-office politicking common among her colleagues and thus never received the promotions she deserved. “I don’t understand them,” she would say of the other women in her office, “fawning and bootlicking and backstabbing to be noticed. No woman—nor man either—should have to stoop that low.”

Up until her own death, she did not possess the pragmatism necessary to deal with Theron Claymore’s sort. She never knew her child did—never knew, for instance, that the  disfiguring “accident” in high school chemistry which befell one of my classmates avenged an affront; never knew that during my first year at Danforth, the occupant of an apartment in the building next to mine died to prevent disclosure of what he saw when, upon arriving home from work one evening, I carelessly left the bedroom curtains open.



Barry Ergang ©2013

Stuffed Shirt is one of a number of Barry Ergang's books available at Amazon and Smashwords.

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.

FREE For A Few Hours More

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.

FREE BOOKS and the Smashword Promotion--TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

Ending Saturday night at midnight, 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.

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.

Sample Sunday: Excerpt from the locked room mystery "The Play Of Light And Shadow" by Barry Ergang

 This week Barry shares 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 ©2014 The Play Of Light And Shadow is one of a number of Barry Ergang's books available at Amazon and Smashwords.

Sample Sunday: Excerpt from "Stuffed Shirt" by Barry Ergang

Barry Ergang is back this week with an excerpt from his short story e-book STUFFED SHIRT.

STUFFED SHIRT

by Barry Ergang

Label it instinct, intuition, or clairvoyance—when I met Theron Claymore, I immediately sensed a predator in our midst.

When he strode into the department alongside Haskell, art director at Danforth Advertising, I thought Claymore was a model. Tall and blond, with appraising slate-blue eyes, he carried himself with the erect confidence one associates with a California surfer. He lacked only the deep suntan. Sensing his superficiality, I was astonished when Haskell announced him as the newest member of our ranks.

Claymore gave the room and the occupants of its glassed cubicles a conquistadorial scrutiny. Haskell then individually introduced him to us.

“This is Eric Dennison,” Haskell said, smiling benevolently beneath his heavy mustache, “our senior artist.”

Despite my repulsion, I shook his hand and murmured, “Nice to meet you.”

Within a short time my initial assessments were confirmed. Claymore’s work had a draftsmanlike competence but lacked the passion, if such a term may be used with regard to advertising, necessary to our type of illustration. Haskell, however, apparently took to it. Perhaps Claymore’s greatest artistry was his ability to sell himself despite the charming sophistry of the product.

Indeed, charm was his biggest commodity and he used it like a chameleon, adapting himself to suit the various agency personalities with whom he had to contend. His good looks and forceful manner endeared him to many of the women, but he was equally adept at bantering with the men. He had none of the newcomer’s reserve and quickly became the focal figure in the art department, magnet for the irreverent remark or salacious joke. Tales of the women he purportedly bedded were incessant.

Most of it I was able to ignore. In my five years at Danforth, I had for self-protective reasons kept distant from my colleagues, which allowed me to work with a relative freedom from interruption. What I could not ignore was Claymore’s camaraderie with Haskell, my immediate superior. Their time together was not spent exclusively on matters of agency business. They lingered in the corridors exchanging jokes and stories, they went out for drinks after hours, they lunched together—often with other department heads. During my tenure I had never socialized with the upper echelons; Claymore exerted a disproportionate amount of time insinuating himself into their circles.

My mother would have been appalled. When she returned to the workplace after my father died, she performed her duties diligently and reliably but shunned the intra-office politicking common among her colleagues and thus never received the promotions she deserved. “I don’t understand them,” she would say of the other women in her office, “fawning and bootlicking and backstabbing to be noticed. No woman—nor man either—should have to stoop that low.”

Up until her own death, she did not possess the pragmatism necessary to deal with Theron Claymore’s sort. She never knew her child did—never knew, for instance, that the  disfiguring “accident” in high school chemistry which befell one of my classmates avenged an affront; never knew that during my first year at Danforth, the occupant of an apartment in the building next to mine died to prevent disclosure of what he saw when, upon arriving home from work one evening, I carelessly left the bedroom curtains open.

Barry Ergang ©2013
Stuffed Shirt is one of a number of Barry Ergang's books available at Amazon and Smashwords.

Sample Sunday--- A Look Back

Recent Sundays have seen excerpts from a number of books here on the blog. I thought today, instead of giving you something new, I would give you the list of recent books and authors so you could catch-up if you missed anyone. The books below are all good ones and well worth your time.

Bowling With The Big Dogs by Tim Matson can be found here. 

The Rules by Mark Troy can be found here.

Blackout by Jan Christensen can be found here.

The Play Of Light And Shadow by Barry Ergang can be found here.

PUN-ishing Tales: The Stuff That Groans Are Made On by Barry Ergang can be found here.

So, go take a look. I expect you will find one or more that strikes your fancy.

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. 

Review: "The Play of Light and Shadow" by Barry Ergang (Guest Reviewer Patrick Ohl)

Guest reviewer Patrick Ohl steps in today to give his thoughts on The Play of Light and Shadow by Barry Ergang. While I link to the book on Amazon (like my own stuff) the book is also available at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. On to the review....

The Play of Light and Shadow is narrated by Dr. Alan Driscoll, a university professor on sabbatical. Tired of the monotony of departmental politics, he gets an interim job as bartender where he meets private eye Darnell, and discovers in him a fellow lover of literature.

Meanwhile, Dr. Barton Gaines, a colleague of Driscoll's and the Chairman of the Art History Department, has purchased a painting entitled "Nomad" by one Charles Riveau, a celebrated painter who once specialised in forgeries and theft. Riveau's ex-partner in crime, Paul Marchand, is a shadowy figure who reminds me a lot of the insane Laurent from John Dickson Carr's It Walks by Night – both men are shadowy figures, nobody knows what they look like, and they are known only by a French surname which might not even be their real name. Mere mention of them is enough to send a chill down one’s spine. The French police have no record of Marchand anywhere, but he and Riveau collaborated in daring thefts and forgeries for years. Riveau ended up going to prison, and once released he wanted nothing further to do with Marchand, which understandably cheesed him off, though his wrath is somewhat excessive: he vows to destroy Riveau’s fame, stealing all the artist's paintings from galleries all over the world and destroying them.

Naturally, this has Dr. Gaines worried, especially as he is planning to introduce his new acquisition at a party for family and friends, and Marchand has a tendency to snatch paintings on similar occasions. But Driscoll brings the problem to Darnell, who agrees to play babysitter for the painting during the party. Darnell stands outside the windowless gallery, to which there is only one entrance. A search is made of the gallery, and nothing suspicious is found, so the door is locked; but when the door is unlocked and the guests walk in, "Nomad" has disappeared, as if spirited away by magic.

This story is truly excellent-- I managed to deduce much of the "how" before Darnell unveiled the answer, but I was a complete dunderhead about the "whodunit?" angle. The impossible problem is a very clever one: the solution is neat, some aspects of it are surprising, and it is scrupulously fair in its clueing, virtues that are admirable in any crime story. The plot is solid, interesting, and well-constructed, as Barry decides to make his impossible scenario a theft. Murder will interrupt the proceedings later in the story, but you're given one problem at a time and I think separating the impossible theft from the altogether-*too*-possible murder was a wise move.

I really admire the writing style as well, which is engaging and evocative, such as when the painting "Nomad" is vividly described. This novelette strikes me as a traditionally-told hardboiled story, and it is told very, very well. We have some of the usual staples, such as a rough-necked cop that Darnell contemptuously describes as a cretin. Unlike many modern-day P.I.s, Darnell does not make being an arrogant, whining, hypocritical pain in the derrière a governing principle of his life, and this is a key reason for the story’s success. A hardboiled mystery really requires an engaging detective for it to work, and Darnell delivers the goods.

Another major plus about this story is the dialogue, which is excellent. It is intelligent and the banter is witty and amusing, with some genuinely funny one-liners sneaking their way in there. I particularly enjoyed this reply when the detectives ask someone where photographer Derek Trevor is: "Prob'ly taking pictures of the scull'ry maid. (...) Just what the hell is a scull'ry, and why does it need a maid?"

All things considered, Barry Ergang's The Play of Light and Shadow is a triumph and a real pleasure to read. I highly recommend that fellow mystery fans take a look, as it manages to fuse the impossible crime and the hardboiled story together in an effective and pleasing way. It can be purchased in e-book form for merely $0.99! It's definitely well worth the investment and I applaud Barry for this excellent story.

Can we look forward to a sequel, I wonder? ...

Patrick Ohl ©2013

The nineteen-year-old Patrick Ohl continues to plot to take over the world when he isn’t writing reviews of books he reads on his blog, At the Scene of the Crime. In his spare time he conducts genetic experiments in his top-secret laboratory, hoping to create a creature as terrifying as the Giant Rat of Sumatra in a bid to take over the world. His hobbies include drinking tea and going outside to do a barbecue in -10°C weather.

News From Barry

The current issue of the e-zine King's River Life contains a reprint of my flash fiction "Spring Idyll" (http://kingsriverlife.com/04/20/spring-idyll-a-mystery-flash-fiction-story/) and, better yet as far as my ego is concerned, a great review of my novelette "The Play of Light and Shadow" (http://kingsriverlife.com/04/20/celebrate-earth-day-with-4-e-book-mysteries-reviewsgiveaway/)

--it's the second of four reviews so scroll down a bit to find it.

New Reviews Elsewhere--Kings River Life

I received the below message from Earl earlier today....

I'm proud as a preening peacock today.  Kings River Life Magazine published Sandy Murphy's review of JUSTIFIED ACTION, my new Mystery/Thriller. Sandy's review is terrific. She got out of the book exactly what I wanted to put in it, and she picked up on what I didn't put in it.

Here's where to find it:

http://kingsriverlife.com/04/20/celebrate-earth-day-with-4-e-book-mysteries-reviewsgiveaway/

You have to scroll down past three other reviews to get to mine, 
one of which is for a book by my pal, Barry Ergang.

KRL Editor Lorie Hamm will draw a name from those who leave a comment and someone will receive a free ebook copy of my book.

And, after you read the review, you can scroll a little further and click on a fun short story of mine called "The Unused Prom Dress" which KRL was kind enough to publish a few months ago.

Earl Staggs 
JUSTIFIED ACTION featuring Tall Chambers available in print or ebook.  “Now. . .it’s personal.”
Details at:  http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com