Cui Bono

by Reed Stirling, Nancy M Bell (Editor)

Set in New York’s Greenwich Village, Cui Bono dramatizes the clash between justice and vengeance. Visiting investigative reporter Lucy Hunter, determined to resist speculation and uncover fact, makes her way through a landscape where fascination and horror co-exist. She ventures willingly into the darkest recesses of human imagining. Imbued with Apollonian light, able then to avoid the whiplash of the furious truths that confront her, she must establish for herself a course of action between legal responsibility and personal betrayal. Lucy’s dilemma is resolved, and the question of cui bono is answered. The court of moral judgement she envisions transcends the limitations of time that her flight of fancy inspires.

Nancy M. Bell Editorial Review
Sterling has penned another intriguing novel. One you'll want to finish in one go, burning the midnight oil. A worthy companion to his earlier books.

278 pages, Paperback

Published December 14, 2025

About the author

Reed Stirling lives in Cowichan Bay, BC, and writes when not painting landscapes, travelling, or taking coffee at The Drumroaster, a local café where physics and metaphysics clash daily. Before retiring and taking up writing novels, he taught English Literature. Several talented students of his have gone on to become successful award-winning writers.
He and his wife built a log home in the hills of southern Vancouver Island, and survived totally off the grid for twenty-five years during which time the rooms in that house filled up with books, thousands of student essays were graded, and innumerable cords of firewood were split.

Literary output:
Shades Of Persephone, published in 2019, is a literary mystery set in Greece.
Lighting The Lamp, a fictional memoir, was published in March 2020.
Set in Montreal, Séjour Saint-Louis (2021), dramatizes family conflicts.
The Palimpsest Murders, a European travel mystery, is forthcoming.
Shorter work has appeared over the years in a variety of publications including Dis(s)ent, Danforth Review, Fickle Muses, Fieldstone Review, and Humanist Perspectives.

Intrigue is of primary interest, with romantic entanglement an integral part of the action. Greek mythology plays a significant role in underpinning plots. Allusions to art, literature, philosophy, and religion serve a similar function. Reed sits down to write every day and tries to leave the desk having achieved at least a workable page. Frequently what comes of his effort amounts to no more than a serviceable paragraph, a single sentence, or a metaphor that might work in a context yet to be imagined.