Tuesday, July 26, 2022

"Shaking Hands" by Glenn McGoldrick


John Baxter is a debt collector, not for a bank or loan company but for some unnamed private lender. He has to collect 300 pounds owed by Kevin Hitchcock, who’s been avoiding Baxter for weeks. And then Baxter finds his quarry fishing along the riverbank.  

“It’s only three hundred quid,” Hitchcock tells him. They fight, and Hitchcock dies. And now Baxter has a worse problem than collecting an old debt.

 

Glenn McGoldrick

Shaking Hands
is a new Dark Teesside story by British author Glenn McGoldrick. Set where all the Dark Teesside stories are set, in northeastern England, it’s a story about what happens when something relatively straightforward – collecting a debt – goes seriously awry. The death is only the starting point, the precipitating action; the story comes in what follows.

 

Writing since 2013, McGoldrick specializes in short stories with a twist, and usually a dark and often a deadly twist. He worked for both land-based casinos and cruise ships for a time, basing many of his stories on those experiences. His stories are gritty, and his characters run the gamut of good, bad, and something in between. They often find themselves moving far beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior. McGoldrick lives in northeastern England (which I’m assuming is not as dark as his stories might imply). 

 

“Shaking Hands” explores the human psyche of a man whose life unravels after a single unanticipated yet precipitous act.

 

Related:

 

Idle Hands by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

“The Moor Road” by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

“Yellow Feet” by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

Three New Dark Stories by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

“Six Down,” “Somewhere in England,” and “Dark Progresion” by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

 4 Stories by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

3+ Stories by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

Five Mysteries: 2 Short Stories, 2 Novellas, and a Long Story.

 

The Dark Stories of Glenn McGoldrick.

 

Watching Crows by Glenn McGoldrick.

 

Some Light and Dark Holiday Reading.

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