Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Drop the Needle: Death #2

TITLE: Job Hunted
GENRE: Suspense

Toni is an investigator for a company specializing in bringing corporate criminals to "justice." She's staking out a suspected a suspected embezzler when an unidentified man appears on the scene.

A beam of light glinted off the oblong object in the man's right hand. With the speed and power of a cheetah bringing down a gazelle, he grabbed Miriam's head, yanked it back against his abdomen, and plunged the syringe into her chest. Her arms flew out--slender fingers fluttering--then went limp.

Toni froze. Her heart threatened to burst through her ribs. Oh, my God--

She grabbed her phone and let a reassuring trickle of anger focus her thoughts. Mike was an ass, but she never considered he'd be so petty.

"You should have reported in fifteen minutes ago," Mike said, not even bothering with hello.

"What the hell is going on?" Toni replied, equally brusque.

"You're late."

"About the target, Mike. Who do you think--"

"I expect you to do your job, no matter how boring. You better have a good reason for--"

"She's dead."

"Excuse me?"

"Drop the act, Mike. Of all the low, tactless behaviours--" Toni cut herself off, biting back words she would regret.

"We knew her age presented risks."

If he was going to play games he could take her job and shove it up his fat ass. "You kept me here, sweltering in a urine-soaked sauna while you had her marked for the cleaners."

"Toni--"

"What happened? When did you get the evidence? How long--"

"Toni--"

"How many days have you been stringing me along? One? Three? You s***-faced bastard."

8 comments:

  1. OK, I'm very confused, but a lot of it may be that this just picked up in such a random place.
    You did a great job of describing the death - although without the rest of the book, I thought at first it was the first part of a kidnapping. But I totally did not get the MC's response to the death. At first she seems properly horrified, but then she's just mad at Mike, and apparently not because he's had this woman killed, but because he didn't tell her. I wanted a more upset MC, but maybe she's part assasin herself and the reaction is appropriate.

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  2. I'm also confused. The death scene and the MC seemed like they were in two different times and places.

    After reading through a second time, I didn't really feel any impact from Miriam's death, as the MC didn't seem to be affected much by it, either. I didn't sense any emotional connection between the victim and the other characters.

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  3. I really liked this.

    I felt Toni's surprise as her target was killed. Felt her anger with Mike. Her tough girl personality really came through.

    Good writing, very visceral.

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  4. I felt like there was a shocking jump from the description of the death to Toni's reaction.

    I'm not a big fan of the cheetah and gazelle metaphor.

    I do like your MC's voice as the dialogue goes along, but I would like to see that continued throughout--even when describing the death scene. Is she sitting there watching it happen? or is it a vision of sorts?

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  5. This is probably a really great scene, just a little hard without being 'in' the story already. I think the writing is fine, but I don't get the feelings involved because of the reason listed above. It's fine, not bad.

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  6. The dialogue was good, but a few short lines about the location and body language of the characters would assist in setting the scene.

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  7. Good dialogue here -- I didn't like the gazelle metaphor. Just can't connect an assassin with a hypo and a wild animal kill but that may just be me. I felt that a bit more of a transition to and from the scene of the kill might have make it clearer as the two seem a bit disjointed, but I like the premise and would probably like this story. Good job.

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