Four to Go

by Richard Ciciarelli

About the Author: Richard Ciciarelli has over 200 short stories published in some of the country's top mystery magazines.

Excerpt

Sheryl Case picked up the phone to hear her partner’s nasal voice.

“Sheryl, it’s Myra. That outline for the book you emailed me. You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, please. The killer uses an untraceable South American poison that acts almost instantly? That sort of thing was okay in the 1930s for some B grade movie, but no editor in the world would accept it today.”

“But it fits with the clue of the killer’s recent business trip to Buenos Aires.”

“I don’t care what it fits with. We’ve had three highly successful books, Sheryl. We owe our readers something better than this in our fourth.”

“But I like it.”

“Well, I don’t. I refuse to turn this ridiculous premise into an M. S. Bose novel. Fix it, please.”

“If you hate it so much, why don’t you fix it yourself?”

“When we formed this collaboration, we agreed that you’d do all the plotting and I’d do all the writing. That’s why. Besides, my new boyfriend and I are going away for the week. Bermuda.”

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