Rated: 5 stars (A classy short story)
Serial Lothario Stretch McCann spends a night with married Rose. It isn’t unusual for him to sleep with married women, but Rose gets under his skin. Their night together will have devastating repercussions... JJ Stoner needs an alibi, he asks McCann to help. Both men have issues they need to deal with, and an alibi trade seems the perfect way to get what they both need.
I really liked this short story and was engrossed from the initial sentence all the way to the coup de grace. McCann is a lumbering, gentle giant and I felt for him, the situation he finds himself in is a tough one for anyone to deal with and he deals with it the only way I guess he knows how. Stoner appears about halfway through and gives the story a nice symmetry. Dialogue is sound and the pace is quick, the story well-structured and use of language is sophisticated and had a nudge to the poetic. I had to give this five stars, I could not find any reasons other than personal preferences (I prefer novels etc.) to mark it down. If you like short stories, beautiful written, with mindfully descriptive adult scenes you won’t go far wrong with Frank Westworth’s Two Wrongs. I haven’t read any other JJ Stoner books, but I’ll put them on my reading list now.
Heidi Cieciura
Great review - thanks v much. The author will be delighted!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant intelligent review. Thanks. Really.
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