The Beat Goes On
I’ve been working on a short story, a prequel to The Man from Mittelwerk set in Idlewild, Michigan in the early 1940s before Jack Waters goes to war. My brother and I have written a couple of other short stories and I’d like to eventually have enough for a short collection on Amazon and perhaps Audible.
The only problem is, I’m not really a huge fan of short stories. I tend to prefer novels, which provide more depth to the story and characters. That said, I prefer novels that are somewhere south of 300 pages. Nonetheless, I’ve taken some time to research the field and look for short stories that are well above average. There are two collections I can highly recommend, and a third (not yet published) looks promising.
If you’re a fan of Ian Rankin’s long running John Rebus series, The Beat Goes On is a treat. This is not only a vast collection, it’s a wonderful introduction to the quirky, acerbic, beer-loving Scottish Detective Inspector. You see Rebus from his earliest days, still learning the craft through to his hard-worn years, with cases that will break your heart in just a few pages. The stories are extremely well crafted with enough surprises to keep you guessing. There are more than 30 stories clocking in at almost 500 pages. Best of all it’s available on Kindle for just $3, which won’t even get you half a pint these days.
Although Stephen King is best known as the writer of horror novels, he’s written a wide range of novels, novellas and short stories over the years. There are numerous collections available ranging from Night Shift, a collection of twenty short stories published in 1978 to his most recent collection 2015’s Bazaar of Bad Dreams. If your tastes run longer, I can also recommend 2020’s collection of four novellas If It Bleeds.
Finally, I am looking forward to next year’s forthcoming collection of twenty short stories from Charles Ardai called Death Comes Too Late. Ardai is a prolific author of noir fiction and also the publisher of Hard Case Crime, which has published some of the greatest noir writers around including Lawrence Block, Max Allen Collins, Scott Von Doviak, Earl Stanley Gardner, James Kestrel, Ed McBain, Mickey Spillane, and, of course, Stephen King.
