Robert Lopresti, Shanks on Crime

Robert Lopresti, Shanks on Crime
© Robert Lopresti 2003-2014
eISBN 979-0-9904784-0-9
Print ISBN 978-0-9904784-1-6

A collection of short fiction featuring mystery author Leopold Longshanks, known to his friends and colleagues as Shanks.  Over the years, Shanks has found himself involved, generally peripherally, with a range of crimes ranging from identity theft to murder, in a variety of settings ranging from his own home to a mystery game weekend to a college commencement.  And he discerns the solutions to the crimes as you might expect—through the application of his imagination as a writer and his ability to think logically in following a chain of evidence or, sometimes, conjecture.

There are a few continuing characters—his wife Cora and some of hi writing buddies (and competitors—but they are mostly not directly involved either in the crime or in its solution.  The police in the cases, as you might expect, aren’t necessarily pleased by his participation in their investigations, but they listen with as good a grace as possible. 

As a writer, Lopresti is inventive, and his dialogue (especially between Shanks and Cora) witty and in keeping with the characters as we know them.  It’s hard for me to pick a favorite from this group of stories, but I liked “Shanks at Lunch,” the first story in the collection and (as I understand it) the first one published, quite a lot.  Shanks and Cora meet a reporter who’s interviewing Cora on the occasion of her first published novel, and Shanks’ attention wanders.  Until he sees something unusual happening.

“Shanks Gets Mugged” is a delight, a little story of a mugging and revenge that made me smile (and laugh out loud).  The payoff is perfect.  I also liked mystery-game weekend story, “Shanks Gets Killed,” a lot, perhaps because I’ve always wanted to do one of those and because of the prize on offer to the winner.  “Shanks Commences” reminds me of a number of commencements in which I have participated professionally, although I don’t remember any corpses.

But this is sort of silly.  Looking back at them now, I have to say that all the stories are immensely readable and the Shanks is fine company throughout (as is Cora, for that matter).  What’s even better is that are more Shanks Tales out there…and, if I’m lucky, another collection of them in the near future.

(I have his novel Greenfellas on my-reader and just bought his Greenwich Village folk scene novel—did I mention that Lopresti is also a songwriter?—Such a Killing Crime, so I also have those to look forward to.)