Haunting Memories
Publisher: Authorhouse
Published: August 2000
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 628
ISBN-13: 9781587216015
Subjects: Espionage & spy thriller; Espionage/Intrigue; Suspense; Fiction; Fiction - Espionage / Thriller; Mystery/Suspense
Description: Knox resident Paul Shackelford offers an impressive two-part story about crime and questionable punishment with his published debut Haunting Memories (2001) and its sequel A Writer's Nightmare (2002). Shackelford's first novel, set in the suburbs of Illinois in the mid-seventies, tells the story of Tom Wendel. Aside from being a drug-addict, Tom is an average fellow who works fairly hard to provide for his family and lives his life day-by-day, paycheck-to-paycheck, in an effort to do the best he can for his wife and baby daughter, Sandy and Christina. The Wendels live in an apartment above his place of employment, the factory of Wrines Coffin Company, a casket manufacturer, where he has worked for a long time. Tom is content with his job, is proud of his family, has no real complaints about his home and, overall, is satisfied with his existence. But, naturally, there has to be someone who has to make things difficult for him; that person is Jim Smith, Wrines' plant manager, an individual whom Tom has never liked since Smith became the supervisor two years earlier. Tom had been tolerating Jim for what seemed like forever until one day, in the summer of 1976, he decides that he has endured enough of Jim's flak.
Conspiring with his brother Gene and using his other brother Ronnie as sort of a lookout man, Tom devises a plan to do away with Jim (and his wife Abbey). Developing the alibi of attending a Supertramp concert, leaving Ronnie to defend their actions as to why they left the show, Tom and Gene put their precisely plotted plan into action and do away with Jim and (unfortunately) Abbey in the Smiths' own home while their children are sleeping. When the dirty deed is accomplished, Tom and Gene return to the concert, claiming that they'd had backstage passes to meet Supertramp. The following day, the Smiths' double homicide makes the local news; yet according to the local police there were no clues as to who committed this heinous act. For twenty years, Tom and Gene escape justice because there had never been any evidence to solidly connect the two to the double homicide since their grisly plan had been so well developed and so accurately carried out. That Tom all-but confessed to his wife for having done away with Jim and Abbey Smith doesn't matter either, because Sandy can't testify against him, despite the fact that she knows enough to allow justice to prevail, which practically ruins her life to the point of having to divorce her husband and then receive therapy due to what happened. Still, despite his entire life having been completely up heaved, Tom tries to keep living as if all's right with the world; he remarries and has a second child with his new wife.
Still, as much as Tom and his brothers try to, they still can't seem to completely forget about what happened two decades earlier, as if life refuses to let them put what they did completely behind them. What's more, the "perfect" plan that they had developed and executed, which had baffled the police for years, seems to now be gradually showing its imperfections; the weapon they'd used to do away with the Smiths (the only piece of evidence that would link Tom and Gene to the double homicide) begins to re-circulate within the family's trust. Where exactly did the weapon end up after twenty years?
Two decades later, what would happen if someone, who was related to the Wendel family by marriage before Sandy and Tom separated, decided to write a fictionalized novel about the double homicide? That someone is Donny Johnson, Sandy's brother, who claims that his talent for writing has cajoled him to write a book about the family's dark secret. When his book ("Haunting Memories") is ready for publication Donny is thrilled about his accomplishment; at the same time, however, his gut tells him that the book should not be exposed to the public, let alone the Wendel clan. Still, the literary merits of his work spur Donny to follow through with his plans to transform his manuscript into an official bound product. The only thing is, when people read the book, it doesn't take any type of a scientist to realize that Donny's work is a wee bit more non-fiction than fiction. Nevertheless, the book's author feels compelled to maintain his stance that the story, whether completely true or completely bogus, should be available for everyone to experience. That is when Shackelford's A Writer's Nightmare picks up where his first novel leaves off. More than two decades later, since the case was never officially closed, the Smiths' double homicide finds itself being re-examined, all the while continuing to wreak havoc for both the Wendel family and Sandy's family. Could it cause even more death, aside from the original two casualties? Will Donny himself pay the ultimate price for his book's publication? What, exactly, compelled Donny to write the book? And, most importantly, will there ever be an end to the entire mess?
Granted, Paul Shackelford's two books aren't perfect (there are mistakes and surface errors aplenty, along with a surprising amount of rough language), but the overall story is solid and well developed. In fact, Shackelford's disguising himself as the author character in A Writer's Nightmare / Haunting Memories reminds me of Stephen King and of how he's famous for employing novel-writing characters in his works. Overall, A Writer's Nightmare / Haunting Memories is a good pair of books. While he clearly is still finding his feet with these two novels, I feel that Shackelford has what it takes to make it as an author. A lot of times the sequel to a book isn't as good as the original, but in the case of A Writer's Nightmare / Haunting Memories I felt that the sequel was actually better than Shackelford's debut.
With the duo of A Writer's Nightmare and Haunting Memories, I will gladly admit that Paul Shackelford succeeds in offering readers a decent two-part crime mystery story.