You Dirty Rat by Nigel Bird - a short story review

You Dirty Rat is the opening story from Speedloader, a six story collection of noir fiction.

First set in the trenches of WWI Verdun, France, we witness the brutal conditions there.

The story takes place over a span of many years, from the terrible death of a brother to a heartless application of military law to revenge.  This story will leave you chilled in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

This is the first story I've read by Bird; I'll be looking for his name from now on.

Speedloader is available as an eBook, I downloaded the sample of it for free from the Kindle store which included YDR.  I may have to go back to purchase the whole thing just to make sure Bird gets his 10 cents in royalties. The entire anthology is 99 cents by the way.

Loved it.

Nigel Bird's Goodreads pages is HERE.

Purchase the eBook HERE.

Plastic Soldiers by W. D. County - A short story review

Oh, yuck!

This was a chilling and disturbing story involving child abduction and sexual abuse.

As repulsive the subject is, and I can tell you, I very nearly stopped reading it, the author chose to write the story in the first person, from the point of view of one of the abducted boys, so I kept with it. County never exploited the horror, nor did he go into any gritty details.  He leaves it up to the readers' imagination, which was a very savvy and professional way to tell this story.

Be warned, if your squeamish this may be a difficult read.

That said, it was very well written.

I also believe County is doing readers a service by bringing the horror of this kind of crime to light.  Whenever I hear of child abuse in the news I can touch this story and think, "I'm glad they caught the bastard!"  This is not the kind of story I seek, I don't like being that close this kind of crime but I do feel that I'm better off for reading it.

I still want to take a shower. Yuck!

The author's website is HERE.

W. D. County