Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Short Story Wednesday: Two from Best American Mystery Stories 2017

 

Craig Johnson "Land of the Blind" is Johnson's yearly Christmas story set in Longmire Country. As usual, the writing makes the story work as well as the familiarity with the characters and the setting. Boy, I could have used another season or two of Longmire. Anyway in this tale, Longmire and his deputy are called to a church on Christmas Eve where a mostly naked guy has taken the church and one parishioner in particular hostage to his drug-induced evangelical paranoia. It is not solved in a particularly novel way (a bit too much foreshadowing) but it is enjoyable because of its good-hardheartedness and sense of fun. 

Karen McGee's story, "Dot Rat" seems to be the story of an elderly woman trying to save a child she believes to be abused. Again, what lovely writing here. I could read about this woman's life forever. And in this case, the ending was totally unexpected to me. Perhaps a bit too much. but I didn't mind. Really good stuff. 

Interesting here comparing a story that tipped its hand a bit too much and the other, not enough. Some readers are never satisfied. Big storm starting. See you later. 

Kevin Tipple

TracyK 

George Kelley

13 comments:

Margot Kinberg said...

I like Craig Johnson's writing very much, Patti. It's good to see him mentioned here.

Jeff Meyerson said...

We had a storm last night too.

I like the Longmire stories a lot too. The series was good, but for me the books are better. Longmire was brilliantly cast, but some of the rest of the characters, not so much (IMHO).

Finished the Robert Edward Eckels collection and I'm reading Christopher Fowler's horror (not so much horror, in many of the cases) collection, RED GLOVES Volume 1. "Down" is about a guy who works in the London Underground, checking for outages. He has a nice relaxed attitude with the ghosts of dead people he meets down there, and there is a decent twist at the end. "Locked" is a creepy story about a young woman who sees signs that someone who has been in her flat when she slept. These are all plot, rather than character, driven. Not bad.

One of many authors I didn't know until reading Fowler's description of their work in THE BOOK OF FORGOTTEN AUTHORS was the Italian Dino Buzzati, and I was able to download a copy of his existential short story collection, CATASTROPHE & Other Stories, from the library. The stories are mostly short and unsettling, like "The Epidemic." A man is on a high speed train heading north when he starts noticing, as they pass through stations without stopping, that people seem to be panicking about something, heading in the opposite direction. But there are no stops and no way to find out what is going on. Has their been a catastrophe of some sort? (I don't think the title is necessarily to be taken literally.) Has a war started or a bomb dropped somewhere or...? As in most of his stories, there is no definitive answer at the end, once they do stop at their destination, but it is very disturbing. I think this might appeal to your tastes, Patti.

pattinase (abbott) said...

What a great premise! Fowler's book is waiting at the library for me.

Rick Robinson said...

97 today, 101 tomorrow, 56 days without rain. High Heat Warning in effect and I have a 1pm doctor appt. Hate to be out in the heat. We're hoping we keep power, PGE has send warnings of potential outages. It's getting so I hate Summer.

Todd Mason said...

That does remind me, the Buzzati story description, of riding a commuter train on the morning of 11 September 2001 without a radio or other source of electronic report, and not being too sure about the hubbub at 30th Street Station and all the cancelled AmTrak train service going north, as I walked through the lobby to the suburban service train to get out to TV GUIDE's offices in Radnor...and even by the time the train stopped in a tunnel for a while, I still had no good way of connecting it to the reports of a plane, I presumed a small plane, hitting a WTC tower, that were on tv for the first time as I was going out the door that day (my car was in the shop).

Things were pretty busy, even at such a tertiary enterprise of dealing with that sort of crisis, at TVG that day...and for not a few afterward.

Todd Mason said...

Hope the storm leaves you unscathed! I still need to pick up the 2017 volume (which came out in belt-tightening time). Hell, I still need to see the last several LONGMIRE tv episodes...

Kevin R. Tipple said...

As always, thank you for including me in the short story listing.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Rick, that's bad. We probably had more rain in our thunderstorms last night than you've had in months.

TracyK said...

Oh, Good, I have this on my Kindle. Bought it at a very reduced price. I will check out both of these stories, and others. The Craig Johnson story sounds very good, and you have me curious about Karen McGee's story, "Dot Rat".

Jeff Meyerson said...

We're going to be 94 tomorrow and Friday, but it is supposed to feel like 108.

Todd Mason said...

There really weren't enough other things to do today, slowing me up about as much as usual.

Kit Reed: "Winter"; Barry N. Malzberg: "Barbarians? Sure": Short Story Wednesday

https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2021/08/kit-reed-winter-barry-n-malzberg.html

Todd Mason said...

Jerry's--early Phyllis Whitney, in WEIRD TALES:
https://jerryshouseofeverything.blogspot.com/2021/08/short-story-wednesday-silver-bullet.html

George said...

I've read some Craig Johnson books and of course watched LONGMIRE on TV. Good choice!