SPITTING DEVIL
My 16,000-word Jonathan Stride short story "Spitting Devil" is now available in the U.S. Kindle store!
This story actually began in Spain. My Spanish publisher Circulo de Lectores was preparing a crime anthology, and they asked me to submit a short story to the collection. The theme of the anthology was "the perfect crime," and I decided to take an unusual twist on that idea. In this case, what's been stolen is someone's perfect life.
Alison Malville seemingly has it all. Happy marriage. Beautiful child. A lovely, expensive new house in Duluth. And yet Alison is being haunted by nightmares. Ants keep creeping into her dreams, invading her body, working their way inside her clothes.
"She dreamed of the ants almost every night now. When she closed her eyes, there they were, waiting to slip out through the walls. They had even begun to march from her sleep into her waking life. She couldn't escape them. Wherever she went in the house, she heard them massing in the ceiling, watching her like spies.
Alison understood what was happening to her. It wasn't about the ants at all. It was about her husband. He was driving her into madness."
Alison is the heroine of "Spitting Devil" -- but this is also a Jonathan Stride story. At the time I wrote it, I had been away from Stride for a year. I'd finished THE BURYING PLACE and was in the middle of my first Cab Bolton novel, THE BONE HOUSE. But this story gave me a chance to catch up on Stride's life. So as Alison deals with the ants, Stride is dealing with a malevolent killer whom the media has nicknamed "Dead Red."
"Spitting Devil" is a short story -- it's about 15% of the length of a full novel -- but I think it brings a lot of depth to the format. One of my favorite comments came from a reader who wrote: ""Spitting Devil" is one of the best thriller short stories I have ever read. So scary and suspenseful. Couldn't believe how well you developed those characters in such a short story."
When the story was released in the UK Kindle store, it spent several weeks at #1. And now it's finally available in the U.S. Kindle store, too. As we get ready for two big "Stride releases" in the weeks ahead -- TURN TO STONE on February 18 and THE COLD NOWHERE on April 1-- "Spitting Devil" is a great way to whet your appetite for more scary twists and turns ahead.
Want to read "Spitting Devil" in another language? It's also available in Spanish as LA MUERTE ROJA and Italian as FORMICHE.
