Blindsided, by Eric Brown

 

"Blindsided," by Eric Brown, in The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Mango, 2022.  

I have a story in this book.

Emma is a successful writer of suspense novels.  She is also blind.  One day a man named Dan breaks into her house.  At first he seems to be  a fanatical reader, a la Misery, but it turns out to be more complicated and scary than that.

I'm not a big fan of straight suspense stories, although this is a good one.  What made this the winner for the week is a very clever trick Emma plays.  I have never seen it used in fiction before, although it is nicely logical.  A clever twist.

Belle and Donna, by Keith Brooke

"Belle and Donna," by Keith Brooke, in The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Mango, 2022.  

I have a story in this book.

It has to be a shock to come home and find the police in your house, investigating a corpse.  Now imagine that the corpse is a man you thought was already dead, "[b]ecause I thought I'd killed him years ago."  

Awkward.  That is the situation Donna finds herself in.  Technically she didn't kill Gavin back then, but he left a suicide note blaming her for his final decision.  But now it appears that that burnt body that was discovered all those years ago was someone else.  And it is definitely Gavin lying in her living room.

Hard to explain to the police.  And made awkward by the fact that Donna had a nervous breakdown after the alleged suicide and, well, doesn't remember all the details.  Like maybe where she was when Gavin died?

A nicely tangled tale.