My story “Love Me or Leave Me” appears in the new Crime Writers Association anthology Music of the Night, published by Flame Tree Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster. The full title of the story is “Love Me or Leave Me: A Fugue in G Minor”—and while I don’t know whether that subtitle might make the final edition, it does give a clue to my approach to the structure: four sections to the story, each of them incorporating the same series of elements, but trying to pursue some variation on the given theme.
Plot-wise, the story is about a man who thinks he hears several musical notes—in the night, of course!—that his girlfriend can’t seem to hear… so he goes searching for where they’re coming from. (It’s not a search that goes well… though perhaps not in the ways readers might expect?)
The anthology, edited by the great Martin Edwards, features a terrific list of contributors—so proud to have my story alongside theirs! The full content list, with links to author websites, is below.
- Abi Silver – Be Prepared
- Alison Joseph – A Sharp Thorn
- Andrew Taylor – Wrong Notes
- Antony M. Brown – The Melody of Murder
- Art Taylor – Love Me or Leave Me
- Brian Price – The Scent of an Ending
- Cath Staincliffe – Mix Tape
- C. Aird – The Last Green Bottle
- Chris Simms – Taxi
- Christine Poulson – Some Other Dracula
- David Stuart Davies – Violin – CE
- Dea Parkin – The Sound and the Fury
- Jason Monaghan – A Vulture Sang in Berkeley Square
- Kate Ellis – Not a Note
- L.C. Tyler – His Greatest Hit
- Leo McNeir – Requiem
- Martin Edwards – The Crazy Cries of Love
- Maxim Jakubowski – Waiting for Cornelia
- Neil Daws – The Watch Room
- Paul Charles – The Ghosts of Peace
- Paul Gitsham – No More ‘I Love You’s’
- Peter Lovesey – And the Band Played On
- Ragnar Jónasson – 4×3
- Shawn Reilly Simmons – A Death in Four Parts
- Vaseem Khan – Bombay Blues
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