Heritage of Deceit

Author-Graham Downs
Genre-Short Story
Book Rating-8.3
Personal Rating-7

In my personal opinion this story was good. It hit all the points it could. Made you like or hate the important characters. And came to one of those quick but well rounded conclusions one expects from a short story.

It start’s of with your typical disgruntled worker who happens upon something that could make him money. He’s convinced that the missing ring of a famous murderess is on a worker at his job, and plots to get it. His friend, main character Robert, is key to this plan. The woman who possibly has the ring has a massive crush on him and Lloyd plans to exploit this. Robert of course want’s none of this but somehow gets pulled into it. Besides there’s money to be had if Lloyd is right.


It moves well. The plot is great. The author manages to make you feel for Robert as he battles with helping his friend and this attraction he’s growing for the woman. His internal struggle was played out well enough. Could’ve been done a little better. Even for a short story Robert seemed to make up his mind just a bit too quickly. And my only other issue is I’m not sure how much time lapsed during his courting of Carla, the girl with the ring. One page they were on their first date. Next she’s sporting sexy lingerie. That bothered me. I honestly have no idea how long in real time this story is.

All in all having read my share of short stories, I can’t find anything outstandingly off about this story. I just didn’t like it all that much. Which is why the book still got an 8 even though I wasn’t shooting through the roof about it. After all just because I don’t like something it doesn’t mean it’s not good.

My problem is more of the same when I don’t like something. I just couldn’t buy that someone who didn’t want to take advantage of a woman’s trust, then finds out he does indeed like her, and was never fully part of the plan to get the ring in the first place, would then result to crime on a person that he loves purely for the sake of money that he doesn’t want. I could very well believe it if Robert even for a second seemed like the type of person that would do this. But he was even apprehensive about hearing Lloyd speculate it could be the ring before the plan to date Carla had come into play. And he remained uneasy through the entire story. So what he did in the end just seemed a little bit much for someone that uncertain about what he was doing. If anything he should’ve said no or he should’ve pretended to go along and let Carla in on it (without the readers knowing) and set up his friend. Now that would’ve been a big double cross slice of awesome. Guess even though the plot was good, it was just the type of plot that bugged me so I really didn’t enjoy reading it.

The ending was great. A very perfect unhappy ending. Life isn’t always peachy after all, and this story closes all the ends in that perfect kind of sudden yet fulfilling ending that you get from short stories. I was, rather pleased. Pleased enough to not be bugged at all by the clichéd inscription on the ring. And that’s definitely saying something.

This is definitely worth the read if you want something light, entertaining, and an ending you’re only somewhat sure will happen so you’re still just a bit shocked when you receive it. And that’s just the way it should be. 

Burb

While surfing the Internet at work, Lloyd believes he's found a relic from an old genocide. If he's right, the artifact would be worth a ton of money, and it will give lots of people closure when they find out what really happened to their families.

But there's one problem. The artifact--if it really exists--is in the possession of Carla, a shy woman in the company's Accounts Department, and she never lets it out of her sight. Lloyd seeks the help of his friend and fellow employee, Robert, whom Carla is desperately in love with. Will Robert agree to use Carla's feelings for him to get information about the mysterious object?