Dramatis Personae Heartless Horse: The Patriarch Mrs. Heartless Horse: The Matriarch Tadiscule: The First Son Ambuscule and Minuscule: Siblings Rarefied The Trembly Bird Who Flew Away: The Lost Daughter Grandvikings: The Grandchildren The Landscaper: Lover of Mrs. Heartless Horse The Hatcheck Girl: The Mother of Heartless Horse’s Other Child The Soprano at the Glee Club: […]
Chapter 1 A young slave could be bought for two hundred drachmas. A well-trained Molossian hound cost five hundred. Well-trained meant that he would always bite on the buttocks and deliver his captive alive and free of fractures. The Assembly had issued an ordinance providing that anyone who kept a loose Molossian at a distance […]
Mostly shit happens, but sometimes things fall in your lap, not often, but enough times to drop a rock on despair. But you can’t start in with thoughts of redemption. That would be inappropriate. Such events are not about you. Things fall in your lap not because you’re good, but because other people are bad. […]
ONEDear Reader, The story thus far, as you may have forgotten: Even as a young boy, Billy Argo showed an uncanny talent for solving puzzles of almost every configuration, arrangement, and design. That is all. No—it was more than a talent. It was a kind of very sad genius, so that in the end, the […]
How did you come up with the idea for this novel? I work in a building that was once the home of a silent film star, Mary Miles Minter. Her career ended when she got caught up in a murder scandal in the early 1920s. For me, this was an incredible gift. The first year […]
“Neo-American” Goodson readied himself for his big day. Up a little early, shower, read the Measure (local paper), glance at the Times. Checked specifically the word on the goings-on. Namely, the President of the United States coming to town. And he had the biggest front on it, since he was mayor. The Mayor. (A quick […]
Leslie is a corporate lawyer, rich, but also a porn addict. Accidentally (on purpose?) he killed his wife Cecelia, who worked as a dominatrix, in a suffocation sex game. The judge in Leslie’s latest big important case was one of Cecelia’s infantilist clients, so Leslie is trying to blackmail him with photos and video evidence. […]
Part One: Rewind April 13, 2001, NYC Except for the fact that it terminates life, death is such a little thing. Muscles cease to twitch, cells fail to regenerate, the body rots. Accidents are the perfect murder. Even the murderer doesn’t know he’s committing them. Until he finds the little gag ball of guilt somewhere […]