Graphic Clues
Pride and Joy (Vertigo DC)
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist and Colorist: John Higgins
Letterer: Annie Halfacree
Archive for February, 2004
You Know Best, Darling
It wasn’t that he was a bad man by his own lights. But his parents had died in a car accident when he was very young, and he’d been raised by a grandfather who believed a woman’s place was in the home. Raising her children, cooking and cleaning for her man.
When we got married my parents weren’t happy about it. They said he was older than I was, and more set in his ways. They didn’t believe he’d make me happy. I was young, I saw his certainty about life as strength. So I married him—and found out very quickly that they’d been right.
Double Death
“I’m sorry, Mr. Brady,” she said, “I simply can’t believe my father committed murder then killed himself.”
She was Joyce Norris Hodges, the adult offspring of Brock Norris, the suicide half of a recent murder/suicide. At least that’s what the cops believed.
“People do these things,” I said. We were sitting in the offices of Brady Investigations on Executive Center Drive in El Paso. Outside it was 100 in the shade and expected to top 105 today. “Especially in this kind of weather.”
Making a Good Recovery
The offender’s name was Robert MacMillan, and he lived on the far side of town. His file listed 15 books outstanding, mostly about ways to make money. Also included were two snapshots of paintings; they hurt my eyes, but what do I know about modern art? In all, the loaned items totalled well over £700, and that didn’t include the fines. The Library certainly hadn’t made any money out of MacMillan.
Anything the Library lends can go missing—not just books, but CDs, tapes, even paintings… You’ll always get some people who think ‘borrow’ means ‘keep’. I track down the persistent offenders, recover the Library’s property, and collect the outstanding fines. They call me a ‘Book Recovery Officer’.
Time’s A’Wasting
When the same car passed the house for the third time in an hour, I knew it was over. If there was any question at all, it was whether Tony would send the police or come for me himself.
Either way, I was dead.
“Who you waiting for?”
Love Will Tear Us Apart
“So, what business are you in?”
I’m sitting in the bar of the Signet Hotel, dressed in my best blue suit, sipping at a scotch on the rocks and wearing a badge that says my name is Rupert Travis. The only things I know about the real Mr Travis are that he’s a delegate from a leading chain of Leeds bakeries and he didn’t show up to get his badge and breakfast buffet this morning. He probably booked as a smokescreen because he’s banging his personal assistant. People do that. That’s why I’m here.
Collaboration
Fading sunlight and tree shadows stained the grass at our feet as I walked through the park with the man I’d hired to kill me.
We stopped near a bench but did not sit, he looking at me with his not incredibly intelligent eyes, high school drop-out maybe, but curious and attentive, nearly penetrating as if he were trying to look through the back of my skull at what lay behind me. His name was Cort. He was on the small side, slight and shorter than me, with wide shoulders and a receding hairline. A lot of rings on his hairy fingers, an aura of impatience and energy swirling around him, as if everything between killings was simply unimportant filler. He didn’t look anything like I’d pictured him during our phone conversation, but who ever does? He must have been a recent quitter but wanted very badly to smoke, the way his hands kept roaming inside his pockets and his mouth twitching like his lips needed to be wrapped around a butt. I didn’t have one to offer, I gave them up about three years ago. Things will kill you.
Bio: Lyn McConchie
I have had over 180 stories professionally published since 1991. This includes crime/mystery stories in Australian Women’s Forum, Murderous Intent, Whispering Willows Mysteries Anthology, Genrezone, Blast, Mooreffooc, Detective Mystery Stories, and in a wide variety of other North American and English Magazines as well as work in DAW anthologies Space Opera, Catfantastic III, IV and V, Merlin, and Further Adventures of Xena: Warrior Princess (Ace).
I have also had a number of books published, including but not limited to: The Key of the Keplian, this appeared mid-1995 from Warner Aspect and continues to sell. Ciara’s Song was published by Warner in July ‘98. TOR Books recently published Beastmaster’s Ark as a June 2002 hardcover (paperback July 2003) and the sequel, Beastmaster’s Circus, appears in hardcover in March 2004. Most recently TOR has also accepted two fantasy novels, The Duke’s Ballad (sequel to my 1998 fantasy, Ciara’s Song) and Silver May Tarnish, a stand-alone fantasy.
Bio: Robert W. Tinsley
I have had eight previous stories published both on the web and in print in PI Magazine, Handheld Crime, Hardluck Stories, Without a Clue, Thrilling Detective, and SDO Detective. A ninth has been accepted for publication as a chapbook by Cyber-Pulp Publishing in 2004.
I am a licensed engineer and have published over 40 non-fiction pieces in both general-interest magazines and in engineering magazines.
Bio: Barbara Davies
I have had a couple of crime stories published, the most recent in HandHeldCrime. My other fiction is mostly speculative fiction and has appeared in MZB’s Fantasy Magazine, Fables, The Eternal Night, Ideomancer Unbound, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine among others.