Лоуренс Блок - Catch and Release

“Scenarios” was written for The Dark End of the Street, a 2010 anthology edited by S. J. Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer and featuring a mix of writers of crime and literary fiction. I suppose my story has postmodern elements to it; I had in mind all the people (you know who you are) who commit no end of crimes in the privacy of their own minds.

L. A. Noire was a commissioned anthology designed to publicize a videogame of the same name. I was dubious when John Schoenfelder proposed that I write a story for it, and then surprised myself by coming up with an idea that engaged me within two hours of our phone conversation. “See the Woman” is the resultant story.

“Speaking of Greed” and “Speaking of Lust” were both written to be the title novellas of a pair of Cumberland Press anthologies, which I edited in partnership with the late and much lamented Marty Greenberg; the rest of the contents consisted of reprinted stories by other writers. Both books were published in 2001. Plans called for a series of seven books in all, with an original novella for each, but we stopped at two. I had a wonderful time writing the pair, greatly enjoying the old-fashioned frame device, but when it came time to try a third one (“Speaking of Wrath”, it would have been) I discovered the tank was bone-dry.

“Welcome to the Real World” is another story commissioned by Otto Penzler, this one for a golf anthology called Murder in the Rough . Once again, it was the second story I wrote for the book; I’d included the first (“Hit the Ball, Drag Fred”) in Enough Rope , and wrote this as a replacement. And this time around Otto remembered to replace “Fred,” and “Welcome” wound up in the book, published in 2006.

“Who Knows Where It Goes” was inspired by the economic downturn. I wrote it without a destination in mind, rather a rarity in recent years, and sent it straight to Janet Hutchings at EQMM . The title is from the haunting song by my friend Junior Burke.

“Without a Body” is more a vignette than a story. It was commissioned a good ten years ago by Esquire ; I was one of five or six writers asked to write something inspired by the Sante and Kenny Kimes murder case. (You could look it up.) A private investigator friend of mine was doing some investigative work for the defense, so I talked to her and spent a day at the trial and wrote an impressionistic piece from the victim’s point of view. Esquire meanwhile had second thoughts, paid everybody, and returned all the stories. I quite forgot about it until it turned up on my hard drive — whereupon I sent it to EQMM , where I’m pleased to say it found a home in 2010.