Shorts

Hard Wood

I’ve been a fan of Matt Hilton’s writing for a few years now and have recently been successful in having my short thriller accepted to his second edition of Action: Pulse Pounding Tales. I’m very pleased with both the story itself and to be included in the compilation. The first edition included authors like Zoe Sharp, Stephen Leather, David Barber and, of course, Matt Hilton.

Hard Wood is about Steve: disabled in the war in outer Desert-stan, he now makes sure containers at a shipping yard aren’t lonely at night. Steve stumbles across some heavily armed smugglers and decides that he is the only one who can stop them escaping before the police can arrive. Pity that Steve is not heavily armed and is missing a leg.

Buy your copy at Amazon US or Amazon UK or Amazon Aust.

The first edition of Action: Pulse Pounding Tales is well worth a read. I loved it.

I also wrote a short essay about illegal logging, the crime thwarted by Steve, which adds some context to some of the statements made in the story. It really is a serious crime and worth having some knowledge about before your next wood purchase or dinner party.

Running the Cross

“A test of mind and body, running the cross is the ultimate test. A dozen rail lines, thousands of tonnes of freight trains travelling at high speed, a race across the tracks to prove yourself. Will you survive?”

Available from Amazon US or Amazon UK or Amazon Aust

I had an idea for a short thriller based upon the male need to challenge themselves and take risks. My reviewers have called it heart pounding, which is exactly what I was aiming for.

Running the Cross – short version

“Sorry,” I hear you say, “Are you telling me you shortened a short story? Do you also divide by zero?”

The answer is yes and yes. The latter doesn’t work so well, it created a space-time anomaly in my bathroom which means my quick showers now take take a long time. But the shortened version of Running the Cross was successfully published at Thrills, Kills ‘n’ Chaos. Stop by and have a read of my story, then browse through all the other great stories.

Rum and Roses

“The police don’t like ‘Skinny’ McAfree, but they do like him for the disappearance and possible murder of his next door neighbour.”

Available from Amazon US or Amazon UK or Amazon Aust

A noir crime short, I was interested in writing one of those ambiguous interview scenes. The police are harassing the suspect, the suspect seems like an average Joe, who really is the criminal here?

Banking on Security

For the 133rd anniversary of the hanging of bushranger Ned Kelly, the Australian Crime Writers Association ran a competition for members to submit a 133 word short crime story. Exactly 133 words. Yes, this is a little tricky to do.

My entry was entitled Banking on Security and can be seen with the other entries here (NB: it is the story that starts with the sentence “Ears ringing.”). The story is told in Lee Child-esque sentence fragments and is very fast and gritty. It is worth reading the other contributions there as well, especially the one about Detective Sergeant Ian Chandler.

Army of the Dead

Who doesn’t love a good zombie novella? The idea for this story came to me after I rewatched the horror movie Dog Soldiers.

Update: this has become a satirical novel.

Infamous Last Line competition

In 2011 I entered the Red Adept Infamous Last Line competition. I placed in a number of divisions, including second place in the Romance category and third place in the Horror/Thriller category. The goal was to come up with the worst possible final line of a novel. This proved I was capable of writing hilariously bad prose as well as decent stuff.

Pleased to Meet You

This is a short story I submitted to the Alan Marshall Short Story competition in 2011. It fared well, considering it wasn’t a literary piece; probably best defined as speculative fiction. Written in 2001, it finally saw the light of day a decade later. I like how I’ve created the ambiguity in the conversation between two people on a park bench. Read it here.