Since the launch of my own Kindle Single I've obviously began to read more of the short stories from a wide selection of writers. This Single is narrated by a woman who is tired. Tired of the IVF treatment she has suffered with no 'success', tired of the smug couples with their children and advice for the childless.
Day shows a good understanding of the short form of writing ( A novelist of note and journalist) She doesn't try to cram the story with emotion, rather it cleverly shows the slice of someones life and their emotions; their downward spiral. The short is certainly dark, but there are moments of real insight and beauty in the story that doesn't leave the reader in a 'dark place'. For more about the writer SEE
BEN WINTERS Last Policeman trilogy has reached it's conclusion this month, and I'm a big fan. The three books, all can be read as a standalone, feature Hank Palace, think Ned Flanders from the Simpsons or the idealist teacher from your school days and you'll get the picture. A stand up good guy detective is highly unfashionable in police procedural crime fiction. Hank is young, healthy and clean living, he's not neurotic or anal like Monk, but there are no dead wives, booze habit, blurred moral lines with Hank. Now throw that character into a world where a huge meteorite is heading to the Earth, certain to end humanity.
Hank continues to do his job, investigating an apparent suicide case, in the Pre-apocalyptic small town America.
Book One featured the meteorite a good few months away, but already people are chasing bucket lists, leaving their jobs in droves, getting married, getting divorced, engaging in massive orgies, killing people or displaying huge acts of kindness.... In the midst of a crumbling society, Hank puts on his jacket and turns up for work and gives his job all.
A tragic and sometimes funny look at a possible end of humanity and how one man tries to carry on 'as normal' as reality flies in the face of normality...
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