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Portraits in the Dark, Nancy O. Greene, 2006, ISBN 0595392806 Here are some rather macabre stories that look at the darkness and uncertainty that are part of the world and human nature. In Thailand, a lonely traveling salesman meets a mysterious woman who deals with sales and contracts of a very different sort. A very insecure man suspects that his wife is fooling around, so he takes matters into his own hands, though not in the expected way. A young woman tells the authorities why she did not splatter her mother’s blood all over their suburban kitchen. The mother was the sort of person who seemed to revel in emotional victimhood. Set in the late 19th century, another story is about the fate of a missing British diamond hunter in deepest, darkest Africa. A woman steals a priceless artifact from a local museum, and leaves two men dead. She is about to take a one-way plane trip to someplace where she will never be found, and live off the worth of the artifact. That is, until the spirits of the dead men pay her a visit, and make her pay for what she did. The book ends with the end of humanity. This is a very short book, barely 80 pages, so this is a short review. These are very interesting and well done stories, but they are not hopeful and optimistic stories. This is very much worth checking out. Paul Lappen is a freelance book reviewer whose website, Dead Trees Review, has over 600 reviews on all subjects, with an emphasis on small press books.
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