5 November 2024.
ISBN: 978-1-68512790-9.
Deed of Darkness is a superb collection of 24 short stories and novellas that will appeal to lovers of mystery, espionage, and historical fiction. William Burton McCormick’s versatility as a short story writer is unsurpassed. He has an innate ability for getting to the heart of a story through the force of his characters’ interactions with one another. The political impact of the times in which his characters live, along with the settings, are invariably exploited to full dramatic effect.
Reading the collection is like biting into a rich fruit cake: the result is addictive and full of hidden surprises and delights. Blue Amber involves a man with a ball and chain manacled to his leg desperately trying to save himself from drowning at sea.
In Locked-In, a man unwittingly becomes trapped in his own cellar. The discovery there is an intruder in his house adds further layers of tension owing to the bizarre twists that follow. On Record is set in a claustrophobic Chicago tenement and proves a story doesn’t have to be long at less than 1,000 words to pack a first-rate wallop. The narrative hits the ground running, and the suspense doesn’t give up until the last nail-biting moments.
Other prize specimens include Voices in the Cistern. Set in the ancient Greek city of Chersonesus in AD 50, a thief must fight off other looters to retrieve a priceless amulet at the bottom of an underground lake and survive his greedy employer’s deadly designs. The author’s flair for historical fiction makes me wish he would write a full-length novel set in the same period. Fast Forward is about a man’s whose alter ego takes over in times of boredom or stress; it has a distinct science fiction feel to it while the concept has strong potential to be developed into longer form.
My favourite novella is Demon in the Depths. A Latvian journalist travels to a remote archipelago off the coast of Norway to search for an aircraft that crashed into the sea. She and her team of divers are forced to navigate the dangerous freezing cold waters in order to find out what really happened to the aircraft. The underwater action scenes are reminiscent of Alistair MacLean writing at his very best.
Suffice to say, the collection is
full of gems. McCormick is a writer with a social conscience who is not afraid
to delve into the devastating challenges confronting his protagonists’ lives.
He is a writer with a heart of gold and clearly on the side of the angels which
makes reading him such a compelling and rewarding experience. Deeds of
Darkness is highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Jared Cade
www.williamburtonmccormick.com.
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