Reptiles of the Mind: Story 4 in the “Tales of Suspense” Series

When a woman sees a dead body across the way through the window in her Manhattan apartment, she is desperate for others to believe her. Unfortunately no one else can see what she does and it begins to drive her to desperation. In the spirit of old radio dramas of the 1940s, the heart-pounding mystery unravels delightfully until the surprising conclusion is reached.

Carole Carson—a fading movie star—slowly loses her mind while surrounded by a colorful cast of unique characters who either are helping to calm her nerves or are consciously driving her insane. What you think is real…just might not be. Or is it? Illusion, or perhaps madness, is at the heart of a mystery for the ages.

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.

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.

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.