Short Story Collections
A selection of chilling, bizarre, and sometimes humorous tales of mystery, murder, and the macabre
Twelve tales of mystery from the pen of bestelling author John Lutz, Shadows everywhere collects much of the author's early work. You'll meet everyone from a "hardscrabble farm woman" to a volatile trucker with an explosive cargo, a cliff driver with dreams of gold, and women who are digging for it. Not every PI is a good guy, and not every villain gets his due. These tales twist and turn, surprise and entertain. Flowing from the imagination of a master story-teller, the stories in "Shadows Everywhere" are a classic glimpse into the worlds of a rare talent.
1998: by John Lutz- Humor, pathos, suspense, and clever surprises are the order of the day in this Master Mystery. This is not a first edition- 287 pages.
From master mystery author John Lutz comes this collection featuring a gripping man-on-the-run novel and four of his best pieces of short fiction.In The Truth of the Matter, Lou Roebuck is a successful advertising man with all the trappings — prestige, position, a flashy car, money, and a beautiful woman on his arm. He's also a compulsive liar, and what begins as a fib on his expense account leads to trouble that compounds like loan shark interest. His past, and the people in it, has caught up with him, again. Which means the life he's been faking his way through, the good life, threatens to come unraveled.Roebuck takes to the road, trying to put miles between himself and his trouble. But he picks up more trouble along the way, while staying in a cabin at peaceful Lake Chippewa in backwoods Missouri. He tries to extricate himself by doing what he thinks he does best — lie. In one scrape after another, it doesn't work. Nor for long, anyway. And Roebuck is on the run again. The problem is that he finally doesn't know lies from truth, about what happened, about why he is running, about what's real, about himself. Distance hasn't helped, and love and loyalty haven't saved him. Maybe nothing will.In "DNA," the new science is solving a lot of crimes long after the fact. And causing problems for perpetrator and victim.In "Image," it's said that perception is reality. In politics, in crime, in life and death."Endless Road" takes place in the early 1960s, when a military advisor reflects on his past to make a decision critical to his nation, based on a memory of long ago, and along the way discovers that maybe some highways continue forever. Maybe all of them do.And in "S.O.S.," a cruise ship is an ideal place to relax. This one needs an overstressed call-in radio psychologist like the Titanic needed an iceberg.
Three John Lutz mysteries in one collection "Tough" A major casino robbery turns sour when the getaway car breaks down in the desert. The robbers come across a nearby cabin but it is inhabited by an old loner. The three robbers try and hold him hostage but he escapes. It became their biggest mistake. "High Stakes" Ernie, a down-on-his-luck gambler who owes the wrong people $1,000, is visited by two enforcers. To escape them, he climbs out onto a narrow building ledge, where he is unseen by the people far below. His only hope of survival lies in his imaginative way with a deck of cards. "The Real Shape of the Coast" Along a beautiful stretch of beach sits a state institution for the criminally insane. Among its inmates are a man who killed his wife with a wine bottle; an ex-butcher who put strange substances into meat; and a man who pushed his daughter out of a forty-story window. When an inmate is found dead on the beach, the rest of the men eye each other coldly—for each of them had a motive to murder the unpopular victim.
Prepare for the supernatural, the fantastic, the mysterious and the strange. Nine thrilling tales of suspense from award-winning author John Lutz. This collection of short stories includes: Kitty Plague Shell Game Stutter Step The President’s Cat Is Missing Thieves′ Honor Typographical Error With Anchovies Veterans