Review of REVENGE DAY AND OTHER TALES OF CRIME AND ESPIONAGE by Michael A. Kechula

BooksForABuck.com, August 2015

An aging American spy heads to Moscow to find what happened to one of his friends... and meets up with one of his Russian counterparts. A female thief has bad feelings about a burglary she and her boyfriend are planning... how far will she go to keep things safe? A class of assassins faces their final exam... a real-life 'wet job.' A frustrated author comes up with the ultimate way to make sure the editors take his stories seriously. Spy-masters come up with creative ways of keeping their spys and assassins focussed on the job... no matter who gets hurt. Then there's the spy who comes across Scheherazade's veil, the voodoo-using detective, and the flying carpet.

In this collection of thirty-one short crime stories, author Michael A. Kechula (see more short story collections and how-to writing books by Kechula) demonstrates why he's become the American master of flash fiction. In each story, Kechula sketches out the character, the problem the character faces, his plan to resolve the problem, and the consequences of this plan. Of course, few of these plans work exactly as hoped, but that's to be expected in the world of crime and espionage.

I especially like that Kechula gives us crime and espionage without the glamour typical in fiction. Kechula's spys are tired and often afraid. His criminals are generally not the best or brightest. To me, these flaws make the characters more believable and Kechula's stories more gripping.

In today's world, readers often don't have time to sit down and read an entire novel. Kechula's flash fiction and longer short stories provide a perfect, bite-sized serving of adventure and crime, often with unexpected twists.

Revenge Day is no longer in print.

Reviewed 8/17/15

Too generous? Too stingy. Or did I miss the whole point? Send your comments to publisher@booksforabuck.com. I'll publish the best letters I get so let me know if I can use your name.