“…the smell of seaweed pressed against his face like a hand.” John Sandford, describing the beach at dawn, in Ocean Prey.

Notable quotes from recent thrillers.

My latest story bite: “The Knot in His Heart.”

What I’m Reading

I am enjoying a few more mystery/thrillers this week. One worth mentioning: John Sandford’s Ocean Prey, an engaging story of boats, diving, drugs off Florida’s ocean coast. Familiar characters – I’ve read a handful of Sandford’s books – and a fresh setting. Can’t ask for more. Sandford describes one character who is a large man, sturdily built: “He could have sold billboard space on his back.”

And, describing the beach at dawn: “…the smell of seaweed pressed against his face like a hand.” Maybe, too, an apt description of what we have all lived through for the last 14 months: COVID, masks, fear, lockdown, life changes. All pressed against our collective face.

Another quote I liked, this from Allison Brennan’s detective thriller The Third to Die: “Every time one of them walked into her life, shit happened. She had enough shit in her job, which she actually liked, that she had no desire to deal with anyone else’s shit.”

All right, then. Enough quotes. Enjoy whatever you’re reading this week.

What I’m Writing

This week I attempted to write one long sentence of about 100 words, an exercise my writing group and I have been experimenting with recently. Long sentences are not my style. I shy away from long sentences and long paragraphs. But here’s my shot at it. I hope you like it.

And find all my books (all short!) on Amazon.

The Knot in His Heart

By the light of a single lamp a man sits hunched over a table, supper dishes pushed aside, bifocals slipping down his nose under bushy white eyebrows, his gnarled fingers picking at his wife’s tangled gold necklace chain with an open safety pin, trying to unknot a piece of jewelry unused for the last four years, attempting to make it wearable once more, unsure why he is doing this, since she will never wear jewelry again, hoping undoing the knot in the chain will also free the knot in his heart, but knowing his heart will never be free again.

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