There are a couple of things you can blame this on. One is the collections of American noir and mystery fiction that I’m plowing through. Another is the week I took off from the blog to straighten out a few things and get ready for another birthday. (Which is today, by the way… yay…) And third is the comments of at least one of my readers (you know who you are) complaining about frequent fantasy elements in my stories. Well, this is one of the darker stories I’ve written in a while, and it also has no magic. Perhaps it could use some.