Tag: shortstories

Deeds of Darkness: Stories by William Burton McCormick @WBMCAuthor

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About the Book

Book cover of Deeds of Darkness:Stories by William Burton McCormick

A collection of twenty-four globetrotting stories of suspense, mystery, crime, espionage, horror, and historical genres, Deeds of Darkness takes readers from war-torn Eastern Europe to gangster America and deep below the frozen seas of the Arctic Ocean.

From modern tales of crime to World War II espionage to ghost stories in shadowy Odessa and murder in Ancient Rome, every flavour of suspense and adventure awaits within.

Format: ebook (594 pages) Publisher: Level Best Books
Publication date: 5th November 2024 Genre: Short Stories, Mystery

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A Glimpse of Deeds of Darkness

Deeds of Darkness is a short story collection by award-winning author William Burton McCormick. It contains twenty-four stories some of which have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, or been published as novellas. The latter includes House of Tigers which I read and reviewed in 2022. Some of the stories introduce characters who will appear in other stories. An example is sisters Tasia and Eleni who feature in another of the author’s books I’ve read, A Stranger From the Storm set in Odessa in 1900.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a gap in my reading schedule to read the whole collection but I’ve dipped into a few of the stories to give you a flavour of what awaits. All the stories in the collection were written whilst the author was living in Ukraine or Latvia, just two of the many countries in which he has dwelt, and many are set there. Sadly, as he observes in his introduction, ‘Some of the places I wrote in are now gone, wiped from the Earth by Russian aggression’.

  1. A finalist for an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, ‘Locked In’ is the chilling story of a man who accidentally locks himself in the cellar of a house he is renting. His initial relief at attracting the attention of a passer-by turns out to be shortlived… and misplaced.
  2. The author and I share an admiration for the ghost stories of M. R. James and ‘The Antiquary’s Wife’ is the author’s homage to him. (You can read brief excerpts from my favourite M. R. James stories here.) Readers familiar with James’s stories will feel right at home, if that’s quite the right way to describe such an unsettling, chilling tale. An ancient relic, an excess of curiosity and an object that has a life of its own are just some of the elements.
  3. Set in Rome in AD55, ‘Pompo’s Disguise’ introduces us to tavern thief Quintus who makes an unfortunate choice of victim to steal from.

If you need any further persuasion, heed the words of bestselling crime author Peter James who says of William Burton McCormick, “This guy has a wonderfully twisted mind! Buckle up for a scary ride.”

About the Author

Author William Burton McCormick

William Burton McCormick is an Edgar, Thriller, Shamus, Derringer, Sliver Falchion and Claymore awards finalist whose fiction regularly appears in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Black Mask, Mystery Weekly and elsewhere. He is a graduate of Brown University, earned an MA in Novel Writing from the University of Manchester and was elected a Hawthornden Writing Fellow in Scotland. 

He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Crime Writers Association, International Thriller Writers and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. His historical novel of the Baltic Republics, Lenin’s Harem, was the first work of fiction added to the permanent library at the Latvian War Museum in Rīga. A native of Nevada, William has lived in seven countries including Latvia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Ukraine for writing purposes.

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Book Review – normal rules don’t apply by Kate Atkinson

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About the Book

Book cover of normal rules don't apply by Kate Atkinson

In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him.

With clockwork intricacy, inventiveness and sharp social observation, Kate Atkinson conjures a feast for the imagination, a constantly changing multiverse in which nothing is quite as it seems . . .

Format: Paperback (240 pages) Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 23rd May 2024 Genre: Short Stories

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My Review

This was a book club pick and almost without exception members enjoyed this engaging collection of short stories. For many, this was their first time reading Kate Atkinson’s work.

From the very first story the reader is immersed in a world where unpredictable things happen but often in the most everyday of situations, such as in a Waitrose supermarket in the opening story, ‘The Void’. Even when you’re dead, as in ‘Blithe Spirits’, it turns out there are rules of time and place you might not expect.

I loved the interconnections between the stories some of which are so ‘under the radar’ you might only pick up on them on a second reading. My favourite involved an 18th century patterned wallpaper. One character, Franklin, appears in a number of stories although his life does not necessarily follow a linear pattern, alluding to the final story, ‘What If?’.

One of my favourite stories was ‘Spellbound’ in which a fairy tale is combined with a depiction of the stresses and strains of contemporary family life, and whose last line filled me with delight at its cleverness. There are some memorable characters, such as the eponymous heroine of ‘Shine, Pamela! Shine!’ who the author manages to make both a figure of fun and someone for whom you have sympathy. The only story I didn’t care for was ‘Existential Marginalization’ but only because I found it genuinely creepy. However, other book club members who don’t mind dark aspects to a story loved it.

As well as all the clever interconnections, there are some recurring themes including motherhood and the environment. The latter is most obvious in the story ‘Gene-sis’ (superbly clever title given what unfolds) in which the damage humans wreak on the planet is seemingly beyond even the Creator to prevent.

normal rules don’t apply (including of punctuation) is a really enjoyable collection of short stories whose myriad interconnections means it’s best read as one continuous whole rather than dipping in and out of individual stories. And it’s a book that would definitely repay rereading to pick up all the little connections between stories you missed first time around.

In three words: Playful, inventive, entertaining
Try something similar: In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler

About the Author

Author Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson is one of the world’s foremost novelists. Her most recent novel, Shrines of Gaiety, set in the aftermath of the First World War, is a Sunday Times bestseller. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

Her three critically lauded and prize-winning novels set around the Second World War are Life After Life, an acclaimed 2022 BBC TV series, A God in Ruins (both winners of the Costa Novel Award) and Transcription. Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC TV series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky.

Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in 2011 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.