Publisher's Synopsis
Snapshots - Frozen moments, captured by the camera's lens, stirring long buried secrets, memories from the sometimes painful, sometimes pleasurable, past. International short story first prize winner Time and Tide takes us to a quiet beach in Devon, as an old man steps back to take a picture of his grand daughter fishing. In a heartbeat this simple act turns a day at the seaside into a life or death race against time. A moment of clumsiness reveals a shocking discovery in The Funeral while in Red Shoes another funeral ends with a twist. Key West Suicide sees Florida Detective, Lola Garcia, retrieve an old photograph of a young pilot from the hand of a dead man. Who is it? Why is he holding it? Inheriting his grandfather's Penknife is for Michael, like young Arthur drawing Excalibur from the stone. This rites of passage tale sees the eight year old become a man way before his time. A black and white portrait of an American legend takes us from London in the Blitz, to Mexico and Arizona at the end of the 19th Century, in the fusion of fiction and history, One Who Yawns. In Beyond the Sea a passport photograph in a Merchant Navy pay book, jump-starts John on a journey to discover the long dead father never met. Saturday night in a Soho blues bar, and a man's loins are stirred when he spots Charlie an old flame, across the crowd, but all is not what it seems, which is also true of the shortest offering Deflation where the window cleaner takes a candid shot. The Penny Drops finds Giles intrigued to receive an invitation to dinner, from Penny, an old friend he has not seen for Forty years. Why now? Why at all? And for veteran newspaper reporter Robbo, a routine story resurrects a painful memory from his youth, the other side of the world, in a twist of fate that brings closure and peace to a grieving mother. Pensioner Harry's quiet afternoon pint in the local turns into a nightmare in Respect when he is confronted by a volatile, drug fueled, villain, armed with a gun.
