"Nathan Byrne walked up the steps of the police station and stopped before the polished steel and glass doors. An icy wind swept past him, sending debris flying down the street."   A detective is facing a major life change, but he doesn't know it yet. Sometimes a mystery goes much deeper than just catching a killer.

“'I don’t know, Goddamnit!' It’s the only thing Willy’s sure of, and he keeps shouting it at the cop. In the dark room, a spotlight is burning his eyes down to the sockets. It’s a basement of sorts, the ceiling a crisscross of piping and duct work, industrial grey and dark green."   Where memory should be: a black hole. Is there any hope? A man's struggle with addiction can't be kept secret when it threatens to destroy his family.

Something different for this episode! What kind of strange correspondence comes in to The Strange Recital mailbox? Here's a sampling. But wait... is there a story here somewhere?

"Propelled silently by his frog feet, the diver floated toward his destination. There was no light, except for the murky beam from his waterproof torch. He couldn’t be sure he was going the right way."   A late-career secret agent... is this his last mission? Is he expendable? And who are these mysterious enemies anyway? What would you do if you had a chance to make a new start?

"The pack had quickly come to feel like part of her body. She could forget its weight, take its contents for granted, and if she wanted to bushwhack up an interesting-looking ridge, or hop into somebody’s horse cart at a road crossing, everything she needed simply came with her automatically. She and her teacher were free as turtles, needing nothing for shelter but their persons."   The future. A young woman travels with her mentor through a time when ninety percent of humans are gone, yet nature thrives. What will she learn? Can a new world be a better world?

"Snorri cackled and sucked at his teeth. The wind blasted across the lake, cutting the snow into sharp ridges. He hurled instructions at me as if he were whipping a husky, and I spun the wheel according to Snorri’s command. Our tires rolled off the beach onto the thick ice cap that froze over the lake in winter, clods of snow drumming the floorboard from underneath like the rapping of the dead."   A Scandinavian murder mystery... but much more. A rollicking ride with vividly-drawn misfits through wintry desolation, quirky cop-work, and postmodern Viking derring-do!

"It was on my last shift cleaning bathrooms at the Pizza Port, just before I told the manager I was quitting, when I found the wallet in one of the stalls... The picture on the license was exotic. He wore a turban, had thick tortoiseshell eyeglasses, and sported a flat gold chain with an amulet. Some kind of Arab sheik with Mafia ties?"   A hapless ex-real estate agent stumbles into an adventure that might be life-changing... if it's not life-ending. An excerpt from a new collection of novellas and stories.

"'Are you serious?—do you really believe that a machine thinks?' I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon the coals in the grate, touching them deftly here and there with the fire-poker till they signified a sense of his attention by a brighter glow."   A prescient nineteenth-century classic explores topics that are timely today, and even ventures into timeless questions about life and consciousness, all with a dark Gothic atmosphere. The story is followed by a discussion that veers into murky depths!

"Ahhh, the soothing sounds of the Chainsaw Americans. You can hear them, less than a quarter of a mile away, marching up the avenue. Thousands of them, buzzing in unison. Louder than a flock of Harleys."   Doesn't it feel great to be part of a movement? To wield a noisy power tool with wicked steel teeth? You can join the march as soon as you walk the dog! 

"Someone had once said that it was the hour when God walked in the garden. It was at any rate the time when everything begins to breathe again after the long hot hours in which life is suspended...."   An eccentric elderly woman hires a younger man to tend her wild Greek garden. Here's the opening chapter of a compelling, intelligent novel about relationships, aging, and nature -- plus a great discussion afterward.