WHEN KARIN SLAUGHTER AGREED TO be a part of this anthology, she had two provisos. The first was the story would take place in the 1990s and, second, her partner would be Michael Koryta.
I readily agreed to both.
Thankfully, Michael agreed too.
The challenge here was for each writer to take their worlds back in time, to a point when their characters were much younger, just starting out in their respective fictional careers. Karin wanted to provide a look at Jeffrey Tolliver as a young man, from 1993. While writing him before, she always knew some things about his early years, but intentionally kept those close.
“It’s fun to keep secrets from readers,” she jokes.
This story allowed her an opportunity to share a few of those tidbits.
For Michael, this was the first time he’s ever written from Joe Pritchard’s point of view. He actually hasn’t written about Lincoln Perry or Joe in eight years, and those stories were always told in the first person, from Lincoln’s point of view. This story provided a chance to not only move the characters back in time but also to change the lens.
Michael notes that a pattern developed during the process. He would write something and hand it off to Karin. Then she’d write something a lot better and funnier and hand it back. It came to a point that he didn’t want the story to end, because it became a lot of fun. One of the major characters is named after a bet he lost to the novelist Alafair Burke. I won’t tell you which one, but the studious reader will know.
And here’s the best irony.
Word-wise, this is the longest effort included in this anthology.
Yet it carries a curious title.
Short Story.