Author : Claire Douglas
Title : The Text
Pages : 40
Publisher : Penguin
Publication date : August 31, 2017
A single text changed her life. Did it end his?
Emily Latimer is furious. Her boss Andrew is being so unreasonable, as always. She fires off a text to her boyfriend, only in her haste she sends it to her whole office group.
In it she says Andrew’s being difficult about letting her have time off work. That she is angry. That she hopes he dies. The next day her face burns in the office. No one believes her when she says it was a typo, she meant to say does. She hopes he does.
It’s a nightmare. But it gets worse – Andrew doesn’t turn up for work. And then the police come knocking. Because Andrew Burton has been murdered.
The Text is a free kindle short story by one of my favourite authors. And that’s also the only reason why I picked it up because I don’t normally read short stories. I find them, wait for it, too short. 😄. Just when you feel you’re getting to grips with things, it’s over. But did I mention this is Claire Douglas? I’ll pretty much read anything she comes up with, to be fair.
Emily Latimer is angry at her boss, Andrew. She’s planned a weekend away with her friends but Andrew is reluctant to give her the time off. On her way home, Emily fires off a text message to her boyfriend. But there’s one gigantic typo and the text doesn’t just get sent to her boyfriend, but to the entire office. And then Andrew turns up dead.
This scenario is particularly scary because it’s so realistic and believable. We’ve all been there with the unfortunate typos, the annoying autocorrect and sending things to the wrong person. Now, at 40 pages short, you wouldn’t expect much, would you? And yet, Claire Douglas manages to weave an intricate web, provide us with quite a few suspects and even a twist or two. So we have a thoroughly enjoyable mystery but most of all, it just leaves you wanting so much more and I’m very much looking forward to this author’s next book!
The Text is available to download for free now!
