Review: It wasn't the climax they were expecting!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 13, 2011
Vinnie Calabrese and Sammy Pinto are greaseball criminal scum. Swaggering blowhards and completely full of themselves, they're fresh off an acquital engineered by the brilliant, underhanded, off-the-wall courtroom antics of their very talented, ultra-slick and equally greasy and less than scrupulously honest lawyer, Leonard Clipstein! (You've just gotta love the Dickensian flavour of that name ... I positively howled!) The victory celebration is being held on Clipstein's luxury yacht which is filled to the gunwhales with gallons of Veuve Cliquot and lots of available ladies only too willing to party through the night in whatever fashion might titillate their two guests of honour.Vinnie and Sammy could have enjoyed the favours of any lady they chose but they only had eyes for a very special guest and they certainly weren't willing to settle for second best. Although Clipstein's futile protestations made it quite clear that the succulent Lonnie Ormandy was part of "his very private reserve; a vintage meant for his lips and his lips alone", Sammy and Vinnie took Lonnie below decks for a very private and very special party for three. They knew precisely what they wanted but Lonnie hada rather different ending in mind.And clearly, so did Lawrence Kelter, the author of this sneaky little short story that will catch you entirely flat-footed with that brilliant unexpected ending! Like Jeffrey Deaver's "Twisted", Jeffrey Archer's "Twelve Red Herrings" or Isaac Asimov's "Union Club Mysteries", Kelter clearly knows his way around a short story with that bizarre ending that arrives out of left field. Add that to wonderfully realistic dialogue and crafty characterization, even within the limitations of so few pages, and you've g ot a real winner.I'm going to give Kelter some clear space on my future reading calendar. Highly recommended.Paul Weiss