Holly Igney Igney itibaren Karanthur, Kerala, الهند
Anthology of 10 short mysteries. The first three in the book won a contest to be in the book (including Addie King). Mostly not bad.
First a clarification: the story itself gets one star. The other star is for the afterword/correspondence between the authors that my copy included. Over all it was poorly written horror-porn spun off from an interesting Creative Writing 102 starter seed-- what if a serial killer hitchhiker comes in contact with a serial killer long haul driver? Answer: horrible gory things described in far too much detail for such a short story. I love a good horror novel, and I've usually got a pretty strong stomach for the gross, but I can only read about so many corn cobs and grinding snapping bones before I question why. The authors' discussion on how they came up with the story is much more engaging. (It also explained why the writing felt choppy and uneven.) You can tell from their discussion they have a great friendship and mutual respect and really enjoyed working on the story, I just wish it had yielded a better product. The concept is fun though, each author took a character and wrote in response to what the other author's character did. They didn't plan outcomes or try to skew the story in a particular direction, they just reacted and wrote. Interesting! Maybe next time they'll have a wider scope and lay off the graphic violence a bit.