Carolina Crimes: 21 Tales of Need, Greed and Dirty Deeds
Carolina Crimes: 21 Tales of Need, Greed and Dirty Deeds is a collection of short stories by crime writers living in North and South Carolina, members of Sisters in Crime. The Triangle (Chapel
Hill, Durham, Raleigh, NC) Chapter of SinC issued the challenge to members to write stories about addiction or obsession and crime. Who knew that the responses would be so varied or that ice cream,
a game of Solitaire, or silk fabric could provide motives to commit murder? Or that golf clubs, stiletto-heeled shoes, and microwave ovens could provide the means?
These stories remind us why we love crime fiction, and why it matters. They provide us with the cold revenge of imagination, the hot passion someone could kill for, and the sense of justice a community demands. They remind us we never know exactly what our next-door neighbor may be capable of, or for that matter, what we ourselves harbor in the deepest corners of our hearts and minds. The humor is dark. The suspense is shudder-producing. The horror delivers goosebumps. And by the time we turn the last satisfying page, we know more about what it means to be human.
“The Carolinas boast some of the finest crime writers ever to set ink to paper and pixels to disk, as this Sisters in Crime anthology attests. Just like a Carolina Sunday supper, these stories dish up a variety of styles, tones and tastes, from procedurals to cozies to dark psychological thrillers. Pour yourself a tall sweet tea or a couple of fingers of bourbon, sit back and dig in.” —Jeffery Deaver
SNEAK PEEK AT WHAT'S INSIDE
Hill, Durham, Raleigh, NC) Chapter of SinC issued the challenge to members to write stories about addiction or obsession and crime. Who knew that the responses would be so varied or that ice cream,
a game of Solitaire, or silk fabric could provide motives to commit murder? Or that golf clubs, stiletto-heeled shoes, and microwave ovens could provide the means?
These stories remind us why we love crime fiction, and why it matters. They provide us with the cold revenge of imagination, the hot passion someone could kill for, and the sense of justice a community demands. They remind us we never know exactly what our next-door neighbor may be capable of, or for that matter, what we ourselves harbor in the deepest corners of our hearts and minds. The humor is dark. The suspense is shudder-producing. The horror delivers goosebumps. And by the time we turn the last satisfying page, we know more about what it means to be human.
“The Carolinas boast some of the finest crime writers ever to set ink to paper and pixels to disk, as this Sisters in Crime anthology attests. Just like a Carolina Sunday supper, these stories dish up a variety of styles, tones and tastes, from procedurals to cozies to dark psychological thrillers. Pour yourself a tall sweet tea or a couple of fingers of bourbon, sit back and dig in.” —Jeffery Deaver
SNEAK PEEK AT WHAT'S INSIDE
- Su Kopil “Lou’s Diner”: With a serial killer on the loose, no one is safe--not even the customers of Lou's Diner.
- Bonnie Korta “The Unbearable Sweetness of Ice Cream”: A kindergarten teacher pretending to be a trust fund baby and poet on Kismetmatch.com , a Southern Baptist minister with a hidden agenda, and a kinky obsession with ice cream churns up a deadly confection.
- Don Marple “Murder at Carson’s Mill”: A stranger walks into a small rural town bringing a secret that leads to murder.
- Ruth Moose “The Two-Faced Dog”: What happens when a dog becomes a woman's worst rival?
- Jennifer Riley “Rolla”: A man in a small town attempts the transition from fighting in combat to pursuing his heart’s desire.
- Judith Stanton “Solitaire”: A stay-at-home wife juggles her passion for Solitaire with her control-freak haberdasher husband’s demand that she has his supper on the table the minute he gets home from work. When he murders her laptop with his 9 iron, what’s a woman to do?
- Caroline Taylor “Intervention”: When her estranged sister lands in prison for murder, Lucinda decides it’s time for INTERVENTION. Martha is an addict, after all, and the murder might have been an accident.
- Linda Johnson “All Clear”: When a co-worker is too annoying, sometimes murder is the only solution. Especially if you’re already an obsessive compulsive dysfunctional mess.
- Jamie Catcher “A Calceologist Has A Bad Day”: There was a foxy lady who lived for designer shoes. When one goes missing, whatever will she do?
- Toni Goodyear “ Writer’s Block”: When best selling author Porter Kitridge suddenly finds himself unable to write, he starts to wonder just what’s going on with that strange new neighbor next door.
- Gina Lea “The Windmills”: A desperate farmer leases part of his land only to find his windfall has become his worst nightmare.
- Karen McCullough “Dead Man’s Hand”: Even though all the evidence points to suicide, Caroline knows it wasn't. If her husband had killed himself, he would’ve left not just a note, but a long list of instructions about his funeral, his assets, and everything else, rather than just a request for her to pick up the dry cleaning.
- Liz McGuffey In “The Case of the Battered Bungalow”: a 95-year old, lifelong Los Angelian rams his tank-of-a car into a bungalow and a story of obsession, first with Veronica Lake, begins to unfold.
- Bonnie Olsen “Obsessions”: A scientist's descent into addiction as told by his work-obsessed technician.
- Britni Patterson “A Look To Die For”: Beauty may go skin deep, but for Rosa Parks, the ugliness at the Raleigh Cosmetics convention goes down to the bone.
- Robin Whitten “Her Final Trick”: “You might as well keep going," she said, to the only man in her life who would help her. We all hope that he was able to convince her of his honest intent. How desperate was she?
- Sherry Bader “Glitz and Glam”: What’s a poor girl to do when her sister’s lush and sexy wardrobe spikes an obsession as daring and provocative as a stiletto heel?
- Antoinette Brown “Silk Stalking”: Will Martha succeed in her larcenous plan to add a display of valuable silk to her hoard of fabric?