Live Commentary

New suggestion for best-ever chapter ending to a thriller. I've just started reading John Franklin Bardin's extraordinary 1946 book, The Deadly Percheron. So far it seems to be part of that small sub-genre, the surreal thriller. The narrator is a psychiatrist. In chapter two, he leaves one of his patients who is about to deliver a carthorse (the eponymous Percheron) to a famous Broadway actress. (Believe me, there is an explanation.)

Late that night, the narrator is woken by a phone call from his secretary:

'Jacob's been arrested, doctor!' she said. 'In connection with the murder of Frances Raye! They found her dead in her apartment, and him, outside, drunk, ringing her doorbell, trying to get in! Oh, doctor, they think he killed her!'

All I could think to ask her was: 'What did he do with the horse?'

I feel I ought to stop reading now. Can the rest of the book possibly live up to that?

I'll report back.

Comments

[Leigh Russell]

Great ending for a chapter. Please visit leighrussell.blogspot.com for details of a new series of crime thrillers. The first, published in June, has been described as "a fantastic read" (events supervisor Borders) and "a remarkable novel" (Crime Time Magazine).