Shots of noir

I think I'm well behind on my challenge to read 365 short stories this year.  I have managed, at least, to read a couple of flash fiction pieces published last week by two of my favourite short writers, Kieran Shea and Matthew Funk.

The Key by Kieran Shea is up at Shotgun Honey
Voodoo Love by Matthew C Funk at Flash Fiction Offensive

Check out these stories and also their others, which can be found all over the crime fiction flash sites.

Lazy Sunday Service

Over the past couple of days I've been reading through one of my draft novels - Stiffed.  It's been in the drawer for about six months.  I thought it was pretty clean, but I've found myself doing a lot of minor tweaking - rejigging sentences, fixing typos, etc.  It hasn't extended as far as major revisions and changes to the plot, thankfully, but I'm starting to wonder if it needs some thickening out in places.  It's certainly interesting to read it through having not worked on it for a good while.  It's the first book I've written in the first person and it's kind of odd to read a story in which the first person perspective isn't your own but it's written by you.


My posts this week:

Flash, bang, miss ... Bloody Idiot
Review of Old School by Dan O'Shea
Tron talk rendered Tron-like
Census 2011: Town and Country data
Review of Where the Devil Can't Go by Anya Lipska
Bulldog Salts

Bulldog Salts

Jake Salts had a face like a bulldog given a swift kick to the balls and a temperament twice as mean.  The cell door opened, the local sergeant filling the frame.

‘Bulldog.’

‘Home.’

‘More like prison.’

‘Didn’t do nothing.’  Prone to bouts of deep melancholy and unholy tempers Bulldog led a mostly solitary existence on a dilapidated small holding.
 
‘Threatening behaviour.  Again.’

‘They were on my land.’ His prime entertainment was chasing startled walkers from his fields, waving a shotgun and hurling obscenities. 

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Matters to me!’

‘This scene is getting tired, Jake.  Like a dog with three legs.’


A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

Review of Where the Devil Can’t Go by Anya Lipska (Tadeusz Books, 2011)

Janusz Kiszka left Poland for London in the 1980s, disillusioned and grief-stricken.  Thirty years later he’s a respected member of the Polish community, dabbling in the shadier side of life to make ends meet and keeping an eye on the new generation of migrants to the city.  When a priest asks him to find a young waitress that’s gone missing he reluctantly agrees to try and track her down.  Without knowing it, he’s let himself in for a whole heap of trouble.  Part of that trouble is DC Natalie Kershaw, a newly promoted cop who’s ambitious, spiky and prone to jumping to conclusions.  She’s been assigned the task of identifying a naked girl fished from the River Thames and tracking down her killer.  She soon has Janusz in her sights, though it seems the answers to both their mysteries actually lie in Poland.

Where the Devil Can’t Go is a competently written thriller with a political subtext.  The strength of the book is the sense of place and community relations in London, the characterisation of Janusz and Kershaw, and interweaving of the two main plots as they twist round each other and intersect.  The writing is generally engaging, though the plot was a little uneven, with the first half of the book stronger than the second.  The first half was very good and demonstrated Lipska’s undoubted talent as a writer.  However, the time in Poland was a little rushed and underdeveloped, and the rise to the climax somewhat contrived.  It’s difficult to discuss the ending without giving spoilers, but in the age of photocopiers, scanners, the internet, smart phones and so on the set-up played weakly and undermined credibility.  Overall, an enjoyable read that will appeal to police procedural fans looking for something slightly different to normal fare.

Tron talk rendered Tron-like

Below is a picture put up on twitter earlier this week of the talk I presented in London last week at the screening of Tron organised by Passenger Films/UCL Urban Labs. Pretty cool rendering of the venue into a Tron-like state.

Review of Old School by Dan O’Shea (Snubnose Press, 2012)

Old School is a collection of 16 flash fiction stories.  Unlike many short story collections, Old School has a theme - getting old - and is organised into three parts: Middle Aged; The Golden Years; The Afterlife.  The stories are all tight and punchy, with some nice expressive prose.  Evenness in quality is sometimes a problem with collections.  In general, Old School is strong throughout and most stories pack a solid blow or twist.  There are a couple of stories that are perhaps a little too short and could have done with a tad more elaboration, but there are definitely no duds.  The standout stories for me were Sheepshank and The Summer of Fishing.  Interestingly, Sheepshank was longer than the other pieces and those extra words allowed some real depth to be developed.  As a side issue, given the book is published in an e-format it could really do with an interactive table of contents - without it it’s difficult to jump around the book, which for a short story collection is very useful (especially when it comes to writing a review and you want to revisit some stories).  Overall, an enjoyable collection of stories that are a cut above average fare.

Flash, bang, miss ... Bloody Idiot

Below was my entry to the Flashbang writing challenge - 150 word or less crime story.  The long list was announced yesterday and I didn't make the last 25.  No great surprise - I got hung up on playing with the form (two sections, four paragraphs each, first and last lines echoing) rather than the story.  


Bloody Idiot

An idiot.  He’d been made to look an idiot. 

Well he’d have his revenge.  Rolly Thompson was a dead man walking.  Assuming he took the usual route home from the pub. 

His wiped his sweating palms on his jeans, felt his stomach knot and twist. 

A swaying figure came into view.  His fingers flexed on the knife handle, trying to get a comfortable grip as he prepared to launch himself out from behind the bushes.

***

Barry Halpin stared at the bathroom mirror.  The man staring back looked defeated; pasty skin, black bags under bloodshot eyes. 

Revenge had seemed a good idea with a skinful of beer and whisky chasers.  It had lost its appeal the second he tasted the blood spurting from Rolly’s neck.

There was a crash downstairs, the cry of ‘Police!’ and the thump of heavy boots on stairs. 

An idiot.  He’d been a bloody idiot.