Firing Gunter (ePub)

I'm always curious to listen when people talk about which book - ever - they'd first read. Mine was the one that "The Man Called Noon" - a 1973 film directed by Peter Collinson, was based on. The 1970 Louis L'Amour novel of the same name.

I was always in love with the books in which storytellers extended an invitation right from the word go, and pulled me in into a different world. The next early love for me growing up were bookshops and libraries. But I'd consider libraries had the first place. My love for both novels and short stories grew over the years, but somehow short stories found me more often. In part, I think because one can sponge it up in a single sitting, and move on to the next world - so to speak.

On the topic of short stories, the storyteller tells it how they see - but being forced to see much more, far quicker. I have no doubt that any short story can be stretched out and pinned down to become a novel - if one wanted to. Obviously there's no set length that a short story has to subscribe to, but I'd imagine anything from five-thousand to twenty-five-or-so-thousand words is adequate to save someone, murder a few people, get some revenge, use most of the rope in your boot, discard the spade when you're done, and hide till the whole thing blows over. Of course, if there's a body, to begin with... Which really stems from poor planning - I have always thought - in a story. Naturally. Of course, we also need to fall in love at some point and give our whole heart to someone special. It makes for a more balanced killer. In a story. Naturally.

As a 47-year old veteran police detective, I was blessed enough to have been attached to both the Anti-Vehicle Theft Unit, Political & Gang Violence Investigative Unit, and lastly the State Mortuary. Experience afterwards, that was sought after in the private sector as both insurance assessor, insurance investigator on short-term and death claims. I qualified myself as a financial planner, following which