When I think about the batch of short stories you’re about to read, it makes me wish more people would read these imaginative, rich, complex tales before (if?) they get the big-screen treatment. I often hear people lamenting the state of Hollywood, how they’re hungry for original, dynamic, surprising stories rather than another middling popcorn one. If that’s the case, I’ve got one thing to say: read these short stories. You can thank me later.
One such story, “Molly’s Plan” by John M. Floyd, details the formation and execution of a bank heist so real and intense that I find it impossible to believe the tale took up only a few pages. “Branch manager Donald Ramsey was fond of saying that no one on earth was brave enough or foolish enough to attempt to rob his bank. He was mistaken,” writes Floyd. And just a few paragraphs later? Not to give too much away, but we learn that to get people to follow a bank robber’s instructions, “A little blood is a fantastic incentive...” An imaginative twist at the end of the story makes it a truly satisfying read.
Jeffery Deaver’s “The Adventure of the Laughing Fisherman” delivers a walloping blow to the head with its big number of unexpected turns. A modern send-up of Sherlock Holmes, the story introduces us to Paul Winslow, whose affinity with the famous sleuth isn’t quite what it seems. I was so enamored with the originality and creativity of this story that by the time I read the last word, I found myself cursing the format of the short story, because I wanted to read so much more about this imaginative character Deaver has created. This one could easily be a major Hollywood franchise.
Another of the things I love about short stories is how they can make fresh voices accessible to readers. I’d bet people are more willing to read a few pages of a short story by an unknown author than they are to read an entire book. Take “Rosalee Carrasco” by Tomiko M. Breland, an up-and-coming writer whose fiction placed in the 2014 Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Contest. This story about a high school tragedy blew me away with its simplicity and power. As you’ll soon discover, it’s what Breland chooses not to say that packs the biggest punch.
There are also glimpses into the lives of intriguing characters, as is the case with Kyle Minor’s “A Kidnapping in Koulèv-Ville” and Lee Martin’s “A Man Looking for Trouble.” The former examines the choices of a privileged young woman living in Haiti, while the latter explores the devastating effects of infidelity and war on a small-town family. These are unfamiliar characters living through very familiar circumstances. The reader is innately drawn in — who didn’t rebel against their parents during those wonderfully arrogant teenage years of life? And what person hasn’t had the realization that their parents, once so heroic and infallible in their childhood eyes, are just normal people perfectly capable of making their own bad choices? “That night, I couldn’t say I loved my mother, or Bill, or my father, who had gone without saying a word to me,” writes Martin. “I could only say that I felt sorry for them — sorry for all the trouble they’d found — and I felt sorry for Connie, who didn’t deserve to be on the other side of that trouble. It would be a while before I’d be able to say that I didn’t deserve it either.” These stories offer real, poignant portraits without ever veering into the maudlin or melodramatic.
I’m confident that you’ll enjoy reading these stories (and so will Jack), and I have no doubt we’ll be seeing a few of them adapted for the big screen in years to come. Of course, it would be nice for as many people as possible to read these stories before that happens, but there’s a bright side to Hollywood’s hunger for short stories. It means that as long as authors keep writing with such vividness and ingenuity, we’ll reap the benefits of having fantastic stories available to us both on screen and on paper.
JAMES PATTERSON
Doug Allyn
The Snow Angel
From Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
I smiled when I saw the dead girl. Just for a moment. Reflex, I suppose.
In Kabul, I once clawed through a busload of bodies after a bomb blast, desperately seeking any sign of life. Didn’t find it.
As a Detroit cop, I saw victims almost daily, and even after transferring home to Valhalla, on Michigan’s North Shore, I’ve seen more corpses than I care to.
But never one like this.
The teenager was sprawled on the snow-covered lawn, her honey-blond hair wreathing her face like a halo. She was surrounded by lighted holiday figures, a laughing Santa in his sleigh, eight wire-framed reindeer, gaily winking and blinking. The girl’s white satin gown was dusted with ice crystals that reflected the flickering LEDs, making her glitter like the display’s centerpiece.
A snow angel.
The scene was so perfect, it almost looked posed, like the girl had dozed off in the middle of a photo shoot for a Hallmark card.
She hadn’t, though.
Her face and lips were a pale pastel blue, her brows and lashes rimed with frost.
In her last moments, she’d thrashed about, striving to rise. To live. But the bone-deep cold sapped her strength. She slipped into an icy coma and then away, leaving her body centered in the image her struggles had created.
A perfect snow angel.
And at first glance, I couldn’t help smiling. Instinctively reacting to the scene. Who doesn’t love a snow angel?
My partner, Zina Redfern, caught my smile and gave me an odd look. I turned away, trying to morph my grin into a wince. I doubt she bought it. Zina is short, squared-off, and intense. All business. Raven-haired, with dark eyes and a copper complexion, she favors Johnny Cash black on the job. Slacks, boots, and nylon jackets. If she owns a dress, I’ve never seen it. Her heritage is First Nation. Anishnabeg. But she’s a sidewalk Indian, grew up tough in Flint’s east-side gangland. She’s a solid partner, but not an easy read.
“Who called this in?” I asked.
“Mail lady,” Zina said. “She dropped a package at the house around eight this morning. Spotted the girl on her way in, took a closer look on the way out. Called 911. Van Duzen caught the squeal, found the girl. He pounded on the front door but nobody answered. He thought he’d better wait for us. Mail lady didn’t know anything, so he sent her on her way.”
“Okay.” I nodded, then I turned in a slow circle, scanning the crime scene.
We were in Sugar Hill, the richest enclave in Valhalla. Homes here don’t have addresses, they have names. This one, Champlin Hall, was an honest-to-God nineteenth-century mansion. A sprawling brick Beaux Arts estate with ornate stonework, towering Gothic windows.
Built by one of the old lumber barons, the estate had been updated over the years. The carriage house became a six-car garage, servants’ quarters now housed exchange students from the Sudan, Serbia, or Ontario, depending on which sports they specialized in.
A half-dozen cars were parked in the circular drive, all of them dusted lightly by last night’s snowfall. No one had come or gone. The only fresh tire tracks were from the mail truck, my Jeep, and Van Duzen’s prowlie, still idling in the driveway, its exhaust rising white in the icy air.
A pristine, snowy Saturday morning. The kind they put on magazine covers.
Except our star attraction wasn’t breathing.
Joni Cohen, Valhalla PD’s intern tech, was kneeling beside the girl, collecting her nonexistent vitals.