Last ShotLast Shot by Alice Bienia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How far would you go if you knew it was your last shot at redemption? At winning, no matter the cost, either personally or professionally? What if the last shot belonged to the villain instead of the hero? Those are the questions posed to the four authors represented in this collection, and each one offers their answer, complete with the requisite twists and turns we’ve come to expect from crime fiction.
It all starts with the diabolically clever ‘Killer Muse’ by Alice Bienia. Nora, a bestselling mystery author, is facing an already extended deadline for her ninth novel. There’s just one not-so-small problem: every potential plot in her folder of “Great Story Ideas” has been considered and discarded, and by day twenty-three she’s pretty much reached the point of desperation.
In ‘On the Run’ by Dwayne Clayden, it’s May 1975 in Calgary, and Constable Brad Coulter and his new partner, Constable Curtis Young, are dispatched to the Earl Grey Elementary School, where eight-year-old boy has been reported missing.
Laced with musical references, wit, and an insider’s look at London’s Underground, Winona Kent’s ‘Blue Devil Blues’ hits all the right notes as we watch jazz musician Jason Davey go for his last shot: an audition for Howard Parfitt, owner of Diamonds, a club in the heart of London’s Soho that, in the sixties, had been a rock and roll mecca.
In Peter Kingsmill’s ‘Where Ordinary People Go To Die,” former OPS auxiliary officer and Coast Guard Frank Anderson, and his partner, Marjorie Webster, have just purchased the Rusty Bee. Their idyllic plans to boat along Ontario’s Trent-Severn Waterway from their home on Anwan Lake in Maple Falls quickly evaporate when Marjorie wakes up to discover a dead man hanging off the side of their crew-boat, a man she recognizes as “the idiot” who’d annoyed Frank at the local pub the night before.
Four authors. Four opportunities to sample the sort of stories they write. After all, this may be your first shot at reading them, but my guess is, it won’t be your last.

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