Having murdered the little Jew, he might have thought that the hard part was behind him, except that it hadn’t been hard. All it took was a twist of his neck, as though he’d plucked an apple from a tree; hardly an accomplishment of note for Piotr the Strongman…
That’s the opening of “Final Blow” a murder story (duh) I wrote for the current issue of Mystery Weekly Magazine. Some time ago, I submitted a story to the magazine, which editor Kerry Carter declined. But she noted that my bio mentioned that my paternal grandmother was a magician, Lightfingers Ida, and my maternal great-great-uncle was a strongman in a Russian circus.
“Give me a story about a magician and a strongman,” she said, or words to that effect. It took me a while, because the good guy wanted to be the bad guy, among other problems. But one morning I woke up and the story was written; I just had to get it down on paper. Ms. Carter accepted it for publication.
If you want to read the rest of “Final Blow,” pick up a digital or paper copy of the September 2021 issue. It’s available on Amazon in a paperback edition as well as a digital/Kindle edition. Or check it out at libraries subscribing to the Flipster system.