Wednesday morning, and it’s August. The end of summer is drawing nigh–although really, there’s at least another month and a half ahead of us–but I am also trying not to get upset with myself for how little I got done in July; it was, after all, an extremely hot and humid month and just having to go outside was draining. I also overslept this morning, and thus don’t have time for the gym; but I can make it tomorrow morning and even if I oversleep then as well, I don’t have to go into the office until two so I’ll still have time.
I worked on “Please Die Soon” a bit last night, but it dragged and I couldn’t really get into the rhythm of it. I am going to try again a bit today, but it’s a tricky story that I hope I can pull off. We shall see, won’t we?
Later this month I am going to focus the Short Story Project on Florida Happens, and every day I hope to talk about one of the short stories and provide some background on the story from the author, and some background on the author as well. It’s a terrific book, quite frankly, and you definitely should preorder it. If you are coming to Bouchercon, it will be there available for sale, and we are doing a launch event on Thursday at 1 pm that day, where you can get your copy signed by as many of the authors as humanly possible.
Here’s the Table of Contents:
Intro by Tim Dorsey
The Burglar Who Strove to Go Straight by Lawrence Block
The Best Laid Plans by Holly West
There’s An Alligator in My Purse by Paul D. Marks
Mr. Bones by Hilary Davidson
Cold Beer No Flies by Greg Herren
Frozen Iguana by Debra Lattanzi Shutika
The Fakahatchee Goonch by Jack Bates
The Case of the Missing Pot Roast by Barb Goffman
How to Handle a Shovel by Craig Pittman
Postcard for the Dead by Susanna Calkins
The Hangover by John D. MacDonald
Muscle Memory by Angel Luis Colon
The Unidentifieds by J. D. Allan
All Accounted for at the Hooray for Hollywood Hotel by Eleanor Cawood Jones
Southernmost Point by Neil Plakcy
Quarters for the Meter by Alex Segura
Breakdown by Brendan DuBois
Winner by Michael Wiley
Frontier Justice by John M. Floyd
When Agnes Left Her House by Patricia Abbott
The Ending by Reed Farrel Coleman
Intro by Tim Dorsey
The Burglar Who Strove to Go Straight by Lawrence Block
The Best Laid Plans by Holly West
There’s An Alligator in My Purse by Paul D. Marks
Mr. Bones by Hilary Davidson
Cold Beer No Flies by Greg Herren
Frozen Iguana by Debra Lattanzi Shutika
The Fakahatchee Goonch by Jack Bates
The Case of the Missing Pot Roast by Barb Goffman
How to Handle a Shovel by Craig Pittman
Postcard for the Dead by Susanna Calkins
The Hangover by John D. MacDonald
Muscle Memory by Angel Luis Colon
The Unidentifieds by J. D. Allan
All Accounted for at the Hooray for Hollywood Hotel by Eleanor Cawood Jones
Southernmost Point by Neil Plakcy
Quarters for the Meter by Alex Segura
Breakdown by Brendan DuBois
Winner by Michael Wiley
Frontier Justice by John M. Floyd
When Agnes Left Her House by Patricia Abbott
The Ending by Reed Farrel Coleman
Terrific, right?
Today’s short story, for the Short Story Project, is “Vincent Black Lightning’ by Tyler Dilts, from Crime + Music, edited by Jim Fusilli.
It was the photo that got to Beckett. An old black-and-white eight-by-ten, yellowing around the edges, in a timeworn black frame. In it, a mean wearing nothing but a bathing cap, Speedo briefs, and sneakers was lying prone on an ancient motorcycle, his arms reaching forward to the narrow handlebars, his crotch perched over the read wheel, and his legs extended back into the air while he Supermanned across the desert floor.
The old dead man had the photo on his lap when he shot himself and some of the blood spatter had misted the glass. He hadn’t done a very good job of it. The muzzle of the snub-nosed revolver wasn’t angled squarely at the center of his skull and the bullet ripped open his forehead. A flap of skin and bone hung down over his right eye. Beckett wondered if there had been enough damage to the brain to kill him, or if he’d bled out. Either way, he was still just as dead.
This is a short, quirky story, about the police looking into the suicide of a man who was a bad father and all around kind of a jerk; it’s very well written, with strong characters, with a lovely jolt of a twist at the end.
And now back to the spice mines.
Queer and Loathing in America 