Hard Case Crime: Witness To Myself
Read Hard Case Crime: Witness To Myself Online
Authors: Seymour Shubin
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SEYMOUR SHUBIN!
“First-rate writing, marvelous characterization, believable dialogue, intelligence, gripping suspense that never lets up until the thrilling denouement... A rare find that contributes to the notion that we are experiencing a new Golden Age of mystery writing.”
—Jonathan Kellerman
“Shubin understands that the recipe for good fiction is set in stone: (1) grab reader by throat; (2) squeeze till limp.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“[Shubin] has brought off a bizarre and blistering rarity. Expertly handled.”
—Newsweek
“A masterfully written dark crime novel... It deserves to be up there on the same shelf as James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity.”
—Dave Zeltserman, Hardluck Stories
“Shubin’s novel is recommended as a must for those who like their fiction with the explosive qualities of a 16-inch shell.”
—San Francisco Call
“A chilling work of psychological suspense.”
—Pirate Writings
“Heart-clutching... leaves one profoundly affected.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Shubin’s novel is simply splendid in every respect, from its ingenious plot to its complex and fully realized characters. His staccato style, deceptively simple, propels the action along at a heart-pounding pace.”
—San Diego Union
“Good... for readers looking for excruciating 3-D suspense.”
—The New York Post
“Shubin’s prose takes us first by the hand, and then by the throat.”
—Carl Brookins
“Shubin’s style of novel is a breakaway from the predictable... The books he writes are a genre of their own, explorations of sociopathy... Shubin, who has had many prior successes, has triumphed with this one, the pages of which the reader will scarf up like potato chips.”
—G. Miki Hayden
“Tight prose and a tense plot, smoothly told.”
—Library Journal
“The tension never lets up.”
—Dorothy Salisbury Davis, MWA Grandmaster
“Shubin’s terse prose lends a noirlike quality to this engaging suspense tale... A first-rate story, sharp dialogue, and a compelling lead character make this a standout.”
—Booklist
“A masterful job.”
—ForeWord Magazine
“Seymour Shubin has an enviable knack as a novelist, the ability to combine a philosophical plot with some of the finest action writing you’ll run across in American literature.”
—Oklahoma City Oklahoman
“[A] superb mystery.”
—The Snooper
“Shubin draws his characters with precision inside a tense, suspenseful plot that moves to an explosive finale. It’s a powerful story.”
—Los Angeles Daily Breeze
“Riveting suspense and intense human feeling. compelling and convincing.”
—Greenwich Time & Times Mirror
“Shubin drives home his point that only a superficial line exists between man and beast. He frightens you with his message and he tells it brilliantly.”
—Cincinnati Enquirer
“The horrifying air of authenticity... must be attributed entirely to the author’s skill. On turning the first page one is lost immediately in a nightmare world.”
—Sunday London Times
“A brilliant, poignant and terrible book. It is the story of a murder beside which the average American thriller reads like a fairy story.”
—Montrose Review
“When a first-class novelist equipped to the full with narrative and descriptive power, turns his attention to the plain, unvarnished presentation of a murder... the result can well be almost terrifying.”
—Liverpool Daily Press
“A storyteller with a terrific punch.”
—Bethlehem PA Globe Times
“Guaranteed to stimulate your sluggish corpuscles... Not recommended for insomnia.”
—Salt Lake City Tribune
The snow was beginning to come down even harder now but he could see that the sky ahead was almost a summer blue. He began looking on the weather more and more as the proper crazy setting for what he was doing. And the questions he’d been trying to suppress ever since he started this drive were coming back like hammer blows.
What if I find out I did kill her? What then?
He almost closed his eyes to the splattering snow and the sweeping wipers.
But it can’t be!
Then why are you going back there?
To clear his head of it once and for all, he kept telling himself. To be free in a way he hadn’t been since that day.
But then why did a part of him want to turn the car around?
He was aware all at once of how slowly he’d begun to drive, as if to make this last hundred and fifty miles stretch on forever. And, even though reluctantly, he stepped a little harder on the gas...
OTHER NOVELS
BY SEYMOUR SHUBIN:
ANYONE’S MY NAME
MANTA
WELLVILLE, USA
THE CAPTAIN
HOLY SECRETS
VOICES
NEVER QUITE DEAD
REMEMBER ME ALWAYS
FURY’S CHILDREN
MY FACE AMONG STRANGERS
THE GOOD AND THE DEAD
A MATTER OF FEAR
THE MAN FROM YESTERDAY
to MYSELF
by
Seymour Shubin
A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK
(HCC-019)
First Hard Case Crime edition: April 2006
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street
London
SE1 0UP
in collaboration with Winterfall LLC
Copyright © 2006 by Seymour Shubin
Cover painting copyright © 2006 by Larry Schwinger
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-376-2
E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-764-7
Design direction by Max Phillips
www.maxphillips.net
The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.
Visit us on the web at
www.HardCaseCrime.com
For Talia Grace Levine
Chapter One
I had no idea how tormented he was. None. And what torments me is wondering if I could have helped him. I mean, from the time he was a kid, when we were both kids.
Alan and I were cousins, the only children of two sisters. We lived for quite a few years in the same neighborhood, in fact only four houses apart. And being five years older, I was like a big brother to him, more than just a cousin. He used to enjoy being in my company, following me around, which I took on as my role even though once in a while, like all little kids, he was a nuisance.
Of course things changed as we grew older, as we followed separate careers, different interests. But we still called and saw each other now and then; and when I got married, he was my best man.
So what torments me is that maybe — no, not maybe, surely — I could have helped him, starting when he was a kid, been a true big brother. And then, later on, surely there was a clue here and there to his troubles, all of which I missed not only despite our closeness but despite the books and many articles I have written on crime.
I tell myself now that I should have done this, that, or whatever. But one of the things I’m not sure about is whether I would have advised him to make that trip to Cape Cod or just let things be.
I do know from what he told me that for almost every mile of that trip he was torn apart by doubts.
Turn back, he kept telling himself. Turn back, turn back.
You don’t have to know if you killed her, he told himself. You’ve lived all these years, fifteen years, without knowing. And you’ve got a good life that you’re going to destroy, you’re only thirty, a lawyer, you have someone you love, and a new career, one where you can do so much good. You’ve never had it better. For God’s sake turn around!