Here is H Dean's review



This is a damned good start to a potentially damned good story. I really liked it – the tone and the style….everything. There are, of course, a few things I would change…


The Manual


Detective Arnold eyed the suspect through the one way mirror.

"So this is him?" he asked. "Doesn't look like much."

The man sitting at the interogation table was in his mid forties or probably early fifties. The story narrator should know how old the man is or should say that the man “appeared” to be of a certain age. He looked like your avarage business man: suit, tie, expensive leather shoes and a slowly receding line of salt-and-pepper hair. The obligatory suitcase rested on Arnold's desk. I like the imagery but this could have been said a bit better and offered a bit more of who the man is.

"I'm not going in there!" Sarah said. "This guy is a creep. A real creep. He gives me the shivers."

Arnold's partner was a tough woman. She had to be. Police work was not for the faint of heart, especially in their department. She cooly interviewed serial rapists and murderers, walked amongst their latest victims on the crimescene with a cup of coffee in her hands. And this Joe Average gave her the creeps? This sentence was bad form – starting with “and”. Furthermore, it should not be a question unless it was is Detective Arnolds thoughts. Actually, the entire paragraph should be Arnold’s thoughts.
"Fine, I will do it." He said with a sigh, picking up the guy's suitcase. This case was weird, and it was getting weirder by the minute. Nothing wrong with “weird” I just don’t like it. It doesn’t fit; feels too much like a colloquialism.

Detective Arnold gave the suspect another look through the one way mirror before walking in. The man did not show any strong emotions, If anything, he looked bored. Not what one would expect from someone who is about to be questioned on charges of abduction, and worse. Bored doesn’t seem to fit with the later description of the man or what you were trying to get across. Perhaps the man was disinterested or amused. I just don’t think that bored is the proper description for what this man would be feeling.


"Now mister..." Arnold paused for effect "...Dreyben. Would you care to tell us what this is all about?"

Make this the start of a new paragraph Muscle packed bouncers flinched when he switched into his interogation mode. - “Muscle packed”, while it is a good description doesn’t provide the needed effect you are going for. You are trying to let the reader know that bad-asses flinch when this guy talks…bad-asses have attitudes but anyone can have muscles.

Mr. Dreyben just Get rid of “just” sat there, barely acknoledging his existence. "Stop playing games with us!" The detective shouted "We want answers and we want them now!" What’s scary about a guy who shouts? Your detective is supposed to send chills up the spine of street toughs…does he need to shout or would he be cool about things?

"No reason to be impolite about it. If you are smart, we can forget all about this sorry business and go our separate ways." Dreyben offered in his maddening, oxford perfect accent. "The way I see it, this is just a mix up that will soon clear up." This is a great description.

Arnold was fuming. He reached into Dreyben's suitcase and slammed a pair of stainless steel handcuffs on the table. "A mix up? Then What is this?" he demanded to know.

"Handcuffs, I believe" Dreyben dryly remarked. "As far as I know, posessing those is not a crime in your country."

The detective added an ankle chain, a set of clamps, a ball gag and a nasty looking cattle prod to the evidence that was piling up between them. It wasn't much, really, just legal items thrown together in a combinaion that painted a highly illegal picture. Arnold wanted to elicit a reaction from his suspect, any reaction, before he pulled out his main piece. He put the shock unit on the table along with the tiny remote they had removed from Dreyben's key chain. The shock unit needs a name – something to make the narration more clinical. Also “shock unit” makes it sound as if you were hunting for a word, didn’t know it and took the easy way out.

"This is really not going anywhere, detective. Why don't you go chasing real criminals?"

"How about this?" Arnold asked and pulled the collar from his pocket. It was a solid ring of stainless steel, beautifully made and decorated with an array of tiny, real gems that spelled 'Ruby'on it's front. It had no clasp and no lock; they had had to call in a mechanic to cut it off the girl. Get rid of “they” and adjust this to something more clinical. The girl, Sarah Gwendolyn Norton, age 23, had been in Dreyben's company when he had been caught in a routine car search. She was clean. Too clean.. Born 1984, issued social security number 427-98-4807, home-schooled, applied for a passport at nineteen. Nothing else. No drunk driving, no medical records and no living relatives. The little they had about her checked out fine with the databases but everybody knew that she was a fake. This entire bit should be made into a conversation between officers. It would feel so much better to read as conversation. Arnold snapped the shock unit to the collar and locked it on. There was a magnetic key built into the remote that could remove it again. He placed the collar on the table and gave it a shock that send a loud snap reverbrating through the interogation room. Dreyben was unmoved. Give me something scarier than a “loud snap”.

"How do you explain that?" Arnold demanded to know.

"Coincidence." Dreyben retorted with the hint of a smile. "My dog trainer seems to fit on Miss Norton's jewelry. Certainly a remarkable discovery but ultimately a waste of both our times."

Arnold could barely contain himself, had to breath deeply several times so as not to punch Dreyben right into his ruggedly handsome face. If only the girl was talking. There was an army of shrinks working on her but they were not getting anything out of her. There were no marks on her, not that the cattle prod or the shock unit would leave any, but she sure as hell was scared of Dreyben. Psychiatrists and/or psychologists.

If only he could get to something solid. Then he could pour more resources into the case. Get Interpol on Dreyben's tail, convince the British authorities to search his villa. International investigations were still a bureaucratic nightmare. His man was guilty as hell but he couldn't do much about it unless the girl started talking. Are you narrating or are you offering Arnold’s thoughts? You tell this like it is his thoughts but in narration.

"Soon," Dreyben announced into the silence "a man will come here. An officer who outranks you by far. He will tell you to drop the case, lock away the files and lose the keys." This guy wouldn’t use this phrase.

"The only thing I'm going to lock away and lose the keys is you, Mr Dreyben." Arnold answered, relieved that he at least had his wits still together.

He put a heavy, leather bound book on the table between them. It was his last piece and, apart from the collar, the only thing that might nail the bastard. 'The slave owner's manual' was embossed in gold letters on the cover. Tiny golden women were chained to the letters. He opened the book to a random page and started reading aloud:

"Beginning with her third month in captivity, a slave may be granted limited freedom and privileges as part of the rebuilding phase. Utensils or pieces of clothing, for example, can be awarded but moving too fast here may necessiate another breaking phase. Keep in mind to only reward a girl if she is acting totally in the master's interest, never considering her own pleasure or well being."


"Given continued acceptance of her position and absolute subordination to the master's wishes, a slave may be granted a name as a gift from her master." Dreyben continued the paragraph, reciting from memory. "A kitchen maid may be given just a number to call her own while a valued slave may be granted a name that expresses her value to the master, like Ruby." Arnold pulle dup the book and reread the last sentence in disbelief. There it was again, Ruby, the name on the girl's collar. That bastard!

"Fiction." Dreyben interrupted the detectives train of thought. "A remarkable piece of writing, wouldn't you agree? The author manages to keep the suspension of disbelief up throughout the entire book."

Detective Arnold's fist smashed into Dreyben's face, sending him tumbling backwards along with his chair. He propped himself up on his elbow and watched the blood flow from his nose onto the floor in a steady dribble. "So far, I have been very agreeable." Dreyben sneered. "But for this, I will have to extract...compensation." His eyes fixed on the one way mirror in a piercing stare and Arnold could hear a faint thump as Sarah recoiled from the glass.


The main trouble, as I have illustrated, is that there is no consistency with the voice.

Decide how Dreyben would talk and stick with it. He sounds educated, calm and smug – let him use verbiage that reflects that. You weren’t consistent with that. Also, aside from the girl getting the creeps there is no description of why he did so…what kind of vibe she got from him. Just that she was a tough gal who was creeped out.

The narration is third person omniscient – sometimes the voice is clinical and other times it sounds like an old Mickey Spillane detective thriller. You need to decide which voice to narrate in so as not to throw the reader. I would stick with the clinical voice…it is a good compliment to Dreyben and an excellent contrast to Detective Arnold.

Detective Arnold needs more given to him. He is a bad ass who needs to be described more fully – I picture him to be a sort of pulp fiction detective bad-ass who exudes controlled fury. At least, from your description, that’s what I get. Fill him in more and it is a great contrast to the arrogant calmness of Dreyben.


Okay, I did a lot of ripping on this story. Had this been spell-checked and edited once or twice and then presented in the library I would have given it a 7 or so in the ratings. Quite frankly, I would like to know more about these characters, despite my raving about this story’s faults.

Good damned job!