Review: AN ODD LITTLE STORY WHICH IS INTERESTING AND ACTUALLY VERY WELL DONE...It is all  matter of taste.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 10, 2011
I love these short stories that are now available.  Some of them are excellent, some good, other so, so and some actually should never has seen the light of day.  The nice thing about it is that they are all short and whether they are good, bad or ugly, you really don't have that much time or money invested in them.  So many of these stories simply boil down to taste; taste in subject matter, writing style and most importantly, whether or not they bring reading satisfaction.Now this particular short story being reviewed here rather fascinated me.  Have I read better stories of this ilk?  You bet.  Was this the work of a polished writer at his or her best?  Nope.  But that being said, there were many aspects of this story that I found to be satisfying as a read.  More about that later, but first a brief look at what the story was about....An aging man; a hit man or enforcer for organized crime wants to quit.  He has had it.  His body and soul are simply worn out.  Of course he is finding it impossible to just walk away into the sunset.  Once in the organization, always in, and the option of simply retiring is nonexistent. This is the story of the protagonist attempting to extract himself and simply retire.  It is also the story of a very brutal and obviously troubled man.Now I will tell you right now that this is a rather rough story and a story where there cannot be a happy ending.  It is a story where the reader will find they have little to no sympathy for any of the characters; the inhabitants of this small tale are simply not nice people at all!  This goes against the common wisdom as to writing, i.e. the reader must have sympathy for, or at least "like" some of the characters.  While I agree with this for the most part I have to say that the author actually makes it work in this case.  You simply do not like any of the characters, including the "main guy," and in my case, this dislike carried the story quite well...odd, I know.The author most certainly has a very good command of the English language.  His descriptions are quite good and the dialog is realistic.  The story moves along at a pretty good pace.  The author has used the technique of skipping from one area of the story to the next and back again and while this may seem confusing at first, it all works out quite well.The only problem I had with this entire work (and I have the strong feeling that this was the intent of the author), was that our writer attempted to build a 15 room house on a lot meant to only hold a 10 room house.  There were little bumps in the story where the author has introduced  new concepts and information that needed a bit more fleshing out in order to connect them smoothly with the story as a whole.  From time to time much has been left to the reader's imagination.  In my opinion, had the creator of this story added about another 10 pages, most of these bumps could have been ironed out.  Ideally, this would have made a wonderful novel, or at the very least a novella.  The writer most certainly has the skills to have done this.But that being said, with the short space that Brinling has limited himself to, he did a very fine job covering  what needed to be covered....limited space, limited words, limits, limits, limits...In my opinion he pulled it off and did it quite well.Reader take note:  There were some very brutal scenes in this work but they were of the kind that sort of had to be in order to tell this story.  To have done less would have taken away from the overall impact; to have done more would have been simply gratuitous...something I cannot stand.This work is not for everyone.  It is NOT a happy read and it is indeed grim and gritty as one reviewer has noted.  As I said before; it all boils down to taste.I am giving this one five stars for the simple reason that I am comparing it to the hundreds of other short stories we now have access to.  Out of every ten for fifteen I read, only about one stands out from the pack...this was one of those.Don BlankenshipThe Ozarks