Paperback
Kindle
About the Author: E R Brown’s first novel Almost Criminal was a finalist for an Edgar award (Best Paperback Original) and an Arthur Ellis award (Best First Novel), and named a Book of the Year by The 49th Shelf. His short stories have been published in Canadian magazines and dramatized by the CBC. He lives in Vancouver.
The reason for your trip, the American border guard asked, business or pleasure? Matt Brodsky knew better than to say business—that’s a one-way trip to the mirror room—but pleasure? For a second there he nearly spoke his mind. That’d get him turned back for sure. Which might be for the best, it’d give him an excuse not to deal with this, his gut was already screwed tight and the sweat streamed down his back. But no, he gave the guard a shit-eating grin and got his passport handed back with nothing more than an enjoy your visit.
Enjoy your goddamn visit. As if.
A couple hours later and he parked his pickup at the funeral home. Wilton and Sons, a plain stucco building at the end of a strip mall in Lynnwood, a flat little suburb north of Seattle. A cop car at the door, no surprise, with a government issue Dodge beside it.
He’d not even had a chance to see Luke’s dead face, if there was one.
Only yesterday the phone had rung and told him what he had already suspected—he followed the news—but you keep hoping, don’t you? There could have been a mistake. How do they identify what’s left after a bomb goes off? They didn’t ask for Matt’s DNA, and Luke’s his damn brother.
No matter how little remained, no matter how hard it would have been to look at, he wished they’d held off. But no, the cremation couldn’t wait, they said. Policy.
Well done! Suspenseful! I'm like, "Oh, No! Don't do that!"
Wow! That was tense. You made us feel for the two brothers when you gave us the details of their back story. But, still. Luke involved his brother in something that could get him killed. So Luke is not particularly a sympathetic character. I'm hoping Matt has a plan to get out of this...
What a great story, from start to finish! Good plotting, good characterizations, all of it.
Great story. I absolutely loved it. It kept me reading.
Great suspense! Terrific job on the story line. I enjoyed the read...and that’s what it’s all about. Bravo!
Thanks for your kind comments!
That was one terrific ride to USA. Enjoyed it enormously. Congrats E R Brown!
© 2021 AM Marketing Strategies. All Rights Reserved.