The Robbery: A Short Story

by John Brinling

Walter decided to rob his company when his business was failing and his wife, Muriel, no longer loved him. His plan was grab the bearer bonds and run—worry about the details later.Everything was fine until a Puerto Rican youth robbed him while he was making his escape.And that changed everything.Now he was the victim.Now he had to figure out how to get the bonds back—and that meant he had to assume the robbery was not merely a coincidence. That Muriel or his partner, Joe, or Luis, the cleaning man, had to be involved.And he had been shot during the robbery.And the police would soon come around asking questions.If things were bad before, they were terrible now.

Genres: Mystery

19 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2011

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 1 out of 5]

Published in 2011 as an e-short story in kindle format.
Estimated length: 11 pages

The most interesting thing about this short story is the opening paragraph:

Like Superman, Walter tried to catch the bullet. Unlike Superman, it went through the fleshy part of his palm between the thumb and forefinger.

After that, the story just deteriorates in a hurry.

Walter is stealing a fortune in bearer bonds from his company without his partner's knowledge, but he gets robbed almost as soon as he steps out on the street. From there, things spiral out of control with one betrayal after another and once it got going it was pretty obvious that it was going for full bore ridiculous - and it got there.

I found none of the characters sympathetic and it was very hard to actually care about them in any way.

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[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly enjoyable short story!

"The Robbery" was really a fun read that kept you on your toes as you were trying to figure out who did what, how/when did they, and why did they. There is a lot of twists and turns in the story, and some surprise double-crossing that takes place. I really enjoy the stories that make you "think" as you're trying to put all of the pieces together to solve the mystery, and I also love stories that have surprise twist endings! So this one was a real winner for me.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice little mystery that manages several good twists without anything feeling rushed (a decent achievement for something this short).

The style is engaging and the mystery absorbing enough that you barely notice when the events veer away from reasonable. An extremely solid story for the length.

[rameau · Rating 3 out of 5]

A farce, that's what this is. A well written, somewhat predictable story of absurd events that keeps you entertained as long as it takes to read. Which isn't very long at all. All the essentials are in the blurb, I won't dissect this any further.

[John Brinling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting. Intriguing. A reversal a minute. A fun read. Wets the appetite for more mystery/thrillers.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this short story was a bit clever.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, talk about betrayal! Who can you trust when you set out to steal a quarter million in bonds from your company? Well,...ah, heck, I can't tell you. It would ruin the story.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very short story - good writing, but the idea is pretty old and predictable. I like how it turns out as I hate shady people, but a little more creativity would be cool. Fun quick read though.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great short story, the ending is a great series of twists.