Review: The best laid plans of mice and men...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 1, 2012
First of all, this is not a John Corey story, but that's okay, Nelson DeMille was writing great stories for more than two decades before introducing Corey in Plum Island.Jack Henry was a big-name author, but with two costly divorces, a couple of novels that flopped, movie deals that never materialized, and the IRS hitting on him for back taxes, he was staring at bankruptcy. The idea of giving up his lavish lifestyle was unimaginably painful. Inevitably, Henry concluded that the only way to stay solvent was the unthinkable - murder his agent, Stan Wykoff, for the $5 million payoff on a life insurance policy. Wykoff also had a policy on Henry, so one of them was eventually going to profit from the other's demise. Henry figured he deserved the money more, since Wykoff had already profited hugely off Henry's labors. After struggling a little with his conscience - with his conscience losing - the problem was how to go about doing the deed."Death Benefits" dealt with the classic question: Can an author of crime dramas commit the perfect crime; namely, murder his agent and get away with it? Having written police procedurals during his early days, Henry knew that the perfect murder never looked like a murder, it had to look like an accident. With that in mind, Henry set about the grim task. He quickly learned that murder was not as simple as he thought. Along the way, there's an unexpected twist that turned the story on end and set up a marvelous surprise ending.I said that this wasn't a John Corey story. In fact, Corey was in the story, but in a most unexpected way. If that sounds a bit too enigmatic... well, you'll just have to read the story to understand."Death Benefits" originally appeared in "Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and the Dead," an anthology of short stories published in 2011.