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    Perfect Crime
    Perfect Crime
    Perfect Crime
    Ebook61 pages29 minutes

    Perfect Crime

    By Jack Erickson

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Short Story.  A San Francisco wife plots to murder her philandering husband and his sexy girlfriend by being in two places at one time. 

    She commits the Perfect Crime and starts an exciting new life with a sexy new boyfriend, living off the life insurance policy of her murdered husband. 

    Until her doorbell rings one night . . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJack Erickson
    Release dateNov 18, 2016
    ISBN9781452305820
    Author

    Jack Erickson

    Jack Erickson writes in multiple genres: international thrillers, mysteries, true crime, short mysteries, and romantic suspense.  He is currently writing a series of international thrillers based in Milan featuring the anti-terrorism police, DIGOS, at Milan's Questura (police headquarters). Book I in the series is "Thirteen Days in Milan." The sequel, "No One Sleeps," was published in 2016. Book 3, "Vesuvius Nights," was published in 2019. Erickson's models for his thrillers are based on three popular Italian mystery series: Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti in Venice, Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Salvo Montalbano in Sicily, and Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen in Rome. All three have been produced as TV series at either BBC, PBS, RAI, or Deutsche Welle Erickson travels throughout Italy for research and sampling Italian contemporary life and culture. In earlier careers, he was a U.S. Senate speechwriter, Washington-based editor, and RedBrick Press publisher. He wrote and published several books on emerging craft brewing industry including the award winning "Star Spangled Beer: A Guide to America's New Microbreweries and Brewpubs." Before he began writing fiction, he was a wealth manager for a national brokerage in Silicon Valley.

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    Reviews for Perfect Crime

    3/5

    32 ratings2 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A San Francisco wife plots to murder her philandering husband by being in two places at one time. A short story that can be read in less than an hour. I have seen this theme on TV, movies and other books. Though it is a common theme I thought it was well-written with adequate character development for a short story.
    • 2/5
      I didn't hate this story & I think there's hope for this author. He could be a good one, so I'm going to take the time to point out what bothered me.

      This was told from the first person point of view. I usually like those, but this was a guy telling the story as a girl & it just didn't ring true all the time, although it wasn't horrible - just a little off. Can't say why, though. I think this might have been better if the sexes of the characters was switched.

      The setup & situation was pretty good, the motives very understandable, but the device was clunky & this is supposed to be a 'perfect' crime. That sets the bar high & the author had all the right ingredients. Unfortunately, he failed to put them together properly.

      I crept back to the patio and disconnected the line from the propane tank to the grill with a pocket wrench. I slipped the round end of the paper tube onto the nozzle of the propane tank and repositioned the line just above the nozzle so it would look like it had been dislodged by an explosion.

      A 'pocket wrench'? I have a quite a few wrenches, nothing I'd call a 'pocket wrench'. Using a wrench means there's no way it's going to look like an explosion repositioned anything, though. On top of that, the character thinks that taping some cardboard & paper together to make a tube to run some gas into a cracked window requires an engineering degree from 'Cal'. (Cal Tech?) Seriously? I know illiterate drunks that could deal with it as handily.

      Worse, this elaborate scheme, which requires precise timing & a very long drive, relies on a 20 lb. propane gas grill tank having enough gas in it to flood a house in the winter. If it had been just the floor, that would have been weak. However the gas took a detour into the attic for some reason.
      ... Being heavier than air, gas would fill the laundry room and work up into the open space, filling the attic. It would creep under the door into the hallway and flow all over the house, laying a carpet of combustible fuel. The gas would seep under the bedroom door,...
      That's a lot of gas to expect from something she never bothered to check. She just heard it hiss & walked away. My wife did that with a roast the other night & we ate very late after the gas ran out & I had to swap bottles.

      On top of that, it's a hell of a thing to hinge all this on when the old farm house has natural gas piped in, an egotistical, owner who drops in occasionally & complains about the cost of repairs. There was a recent earthquake & an inspector was scheduled to come out later in the week. With all that, a better mechanism than a possibly empty propane tank & a big crack in a window could have been worked out. Why bother telling me all that if you're not going to use it?

      She speeds down a highway at night when a ticket is the last thing she can afford.
      Speeding down I-5 was critical for carrying out my time-sensitive plan; if I was five minutes late, my alibi could blow up...
      And it's a 700 mile drive round trip. I count on good roads, weather, & no construction zones, but a 600 mile trip that usually takes us 10 hours (plus or minus 30 minutes depending on how we catch the continual construction) took us 12 hours this spring due to some bad weather.

      The climax was rather underwhelming as well. I could have swallowed the rather large coincidence a twin sister of the murdered woman is an absent detective who suddenly shows up solving the case after several months if the evidence had been a bit stronger. The evidence is security camera footage showing our killer getting gas in a car she rented. That's not conclusive as even the cops say it 'resembles' her. No, the so called 'clincher' is the rental agent positively IDs her from a photo (Not even a photo array!) a few months later. Any decent lawyer would have her out in a New York minute & be suing for false arrest.

      Worse, our killer planned all this out meticulously. She rents a second car with a fake name & signature, uses cash (requiring $1000 cash deposit) & yet doesn't use the disguise she prepared until after she rents the car? That's just hard to swallow for a 'perfect' crime.

      I wanted to look up a point but found I can't read it on Calibre due to DRM. This was a free story with over 800 reviews. While the author has a dozen or so others out there, most don't even have a handful of reviews. I'd think he'd want to make his writing more accessible, not less. With this mediocre showing AND DRM, I probably won't be bothering with another by this author.

    Book preview

    Perfect Crime - Jack Erickson

    PERFECT CRIME

    Jack Erickson

    Copyright © 2010 by Jack Erickson

    ––––––––

    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

    No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

    This is a work of fiction based upon the imagination of the author. No real people are represented. 

    Subscribe to Erickson’s email newsletter on his personal or publisher’s websites:

    www.jackerickson.com

    RedBrickPress.net

    Available at digital sites and www.RedBrickPress.net

    Milan Thriller Series

    Thirteen Days in Milan

    No One Sleeps

    Vesuvius Nights

    The Lonely Assassin

    Novels

    Bloody Mary Confession

    Rex Royale

    A Streak Across the Sky

    Mornings Without Zoe

    Short Mysteries

    Perfect Crime

    Missing Persons

    Teammates

    The Stalker

    Weekend Guest

    True Crime

    Blood and Money in the Hunt Country

    Noir Series

    Bad News is Back in Town

    Audio Books

    A Streak Across the Sky

    Perfect Crime

    The Stalker

    Teammates

    Nonfiction

    Star Spangled Beer:

    A Guide to America’s New Microbreweries and Brewpubs

    Great Cooking with Beer

    Brewery Adventures in the Wild West

    California Brewin’

    Brewery Adventures in the Big East

    PERFECT CRIME

    Jack Erickson

    I glanced over my left shoulder at the lights of San Francisco twinkling like a fairy-tale kingdom across the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. I gripped the steering wheel and turned sharply, brushing against the rocky outcrops of the Marin Headlands. One mistake and I would plunge into the treacherous Pacific currents that have claimed sailing ships since Sir Francis Drake sailed past in 1585.

    The night fog was moving across the headlands like a jungle cat stalking prey. Nothing escapes the fog’s relentless prowl across the barren landscape, dark and moody as a Scottish moor. Strange things happen on nights when the moon shines on barren settings and predators lurk in dark places. Heathcliff would have been at home here; so would have Baskerville’s hound.

    The milky beacon of the Point Bonita Lighthouse swept across the dark Pacific, its foghorn moaning like a sorrowful plea from the grave. A few miles west, great white sharks, gray whales, tuna, seals, and salmon swam in deep Pacific currents.

    The headlands’ tortuous turns resembled a Le Mans rally route. A mile to the east, Sausalito’s bars and restaurants were packed with Marin County liberals dipping focaccia bread in olive oil and vinaigrette, nibbling radicchio salads, chewing on grilled tilapia, and sipping Napa Valley’s fruity pinot grigios.

    I was straddling two worlds: the western edge of North America and the hedonism of the California good life.

    #

    A month ago, my husband and I had driven the headlands’ winding roads to attend a summer barbecue at an isolated hideaway owned by his college roommate, Alex. The sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay had been dazzling in the afternoon sunshine.

    After reaching the heights, we had driven into a shallow valley past a nature center and a mammal research center, along with anachronistic World War II Army barracks and a Nike missile site from the Cold War. The historic buildings form the northern boundary of the National Recreational Area that stretches across the Golden Gate to Alcatraz, the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, and the San Mateo coastline to the south. Beyond the weathered buildings was a secluded area where a few isolated homes remained from old dairy farms before they were absorbed into the national park.

    I slowed as I passed the darkened buildings and drove up a ridge leading to the secluded homes. I parked on the shoulder and turned off my headlights to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I rolled down the window and inhaled salty air into my lungs. I listened to waves crashing against the cliffs and the wind sweeping through the chaparral, oak trees, and tall grass.

    A full moon cast an eerie sheen over the desolate landscape. I braced for what lay ahead; my life could change profoundly in the next few moments. I was about

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