Caged Canary

Beatrice Richards was 39 years-old on her last birthday. That may have been accurate, it might not have been. It mattered not to her friends—of which she had only a few—and it certainly didn’t matter to her husband, in large part because he simply didn’t care. Beatrice was wealthy, entitled, snobbish, unhappy and bored. That is until “it” came.

“It” was an old-fashioned chain-letter that came in the mail one day, which she instantly mocked and derided. Infuriated with the sender for wasting her time, she fired off another one anonymously to a rival—primarily to irritate her—and then was shocked, perhaps pleased, that ill-fortune befell the recipient for breaking the chain.

Realizing she now had power to enact vengeance on her enemies, Beatrice becomes proficient in the dark art of chain-letter writing. The power—if it was indeed real—begins to derail the woman’s sanity and launches a slow but certain descent into madness. But there is a price to pay for her odd obsession as she comes to believe that she holds the levers of control over the lives of others while, at the same time, it clearly is consuming her own life.

“The showdown at the end will leave readers breathless but more than satisfied!”

Each book in the “Tales of Suspense” Series is a standalone story and not connected to the others. Readers can jump in at any point.

Story 9 in the “Tales of Suspense” Series

When a fledgling and failing novelist comes up with the idea of a lifetime—a murder mystery—he brings in a stenographer to type it up as he feverishly dictates the story. Up against an unyielding deadline, the writer tells his tale while struggling with his disinterested typist in a battle of wills.

The author’s novel—embedded into Final Draft—is the story of a hardboiled crime reporter who figures out a plot to seduce and marry a dying heiress in order to gain her fortune. His plan however, is beset with challenges and he finds himself in an ever darker, ever deeping maze of intrigue…something the author suddenly seems unable to escape himself as the writer’s fiction merges with his own life.

Each book in the “Tales of Suspense” Series is a standalone story and not connected to the others. Readers can jump in at any point.

“Before this hour is up, I’m going to kill you,” the patient announces to her doctor. It is the last straw for an entitled, socialite, “trophy wife” who has become enraged with her psychiatrist after she maintains he took advantage of her. He declares it was a mutual, adult relationship. In a story that takes place during the pair’s final fifty-minute therapy session, words fly back and forth as the psychiatrist tries to deescalate the situation while his patient becomes increasingly erratic and emotional. Their discussion—a literal life and death showdown—continues to build in a roller-coaster of words until a shocking, quite unexpected, conclusion is reached. Only one person will be left in the office when the hour is up.

Each book in the “Tales of Suspense” Series is a standalone story and not connected to the others. Readers can jump in at any point.