“Love Me or Leave Me”

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

Book categories: Anthologies