When the Devil Drives

Wild Cards #23.3

by Melinda M. Snodgrass

For over 25 years, the Wild Cards universe has been thrilling readers the world over. Once an assassin and spy, superpowered ace Noel Matthews confronts unexpected enemies after discovering a dead body on the job.Now in development for Rights to develop Wild Cards for TV have been acquired by Universal Cable Productions, the team that brought you The Magicians and Mr. Robot, with the co-editor of Wild Cards, Melinda Snodgrass as executive producer.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Superheroes

49 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 5, 2017

About the author

MELINDA M. SNODGRASS

Melinda Snodgrass was born in Los Angeles, but her family moved to New Mexico when she was five months old making her almost a native. She studied opera at the Conservatory of Vienna in Austria, graduated from U.N.M. with a degree in history, and went on to Law School. She practiced for three years, and discovered that while she loved the law she hated lawyers so she began writing.
In 1988 she accepted a job on Star Trek: TNG, and began her Hollywood career. Her novels, The High Ground, In Evil Times and The Hidden World are available from Titan Books. She is the executive producer on the upcoming Wild Cards shows being developed for Hulu. Her passion (aside from writing) is riding her Lusitano stallion Vento da Broga.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another of the Wild Card short stories and I have to say rather a fun one. I know that my knowledge of the books is limited to the first dozen or so and as such a lot has happened in the mean time. Reading this story I realise that its been quite a lot.

So what of this story. Well here we have another character who has obviously had another life - possibly played out in other stories as clearly we have the appearance of characters which have been given the treatment elsewhere.

The result is you have a growing tapestry of Wild Cards (Jokers and Aces and all the combinations in between) that to me at least demonstrate that although there may not be a huge crisis or conspiracy brewing but normal everyday life can be just as full of intrigue and mystery (and a fair amount of danger too).

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Ace is framed for the murder of a business rival and must use all of his powers to clear himself.

The fun thing about 'Wild Cards' is that sometimes the superpowers take a backseat to the main plot. Snodgrass has written a tense little story where the powers are almost secondary to the plot. They are tools that can be used and, if they didn't exist, other tools could be used to achieve the same outcomes.

[Alex Sarll]

A fairly sappy and inconsequential Wild Cards murder mystery starring gender-switching teleporter Noel Matthews, who now runs a demolition firm as well as being a magician and former secret agent. They're not one of the series' more believable characters, is what I'm getting at, even before you figure in how few Americans can write a really convincing limey.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tries to do and say too much. Too long for a short story, too short for a novella.

[Jamie Revell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not perhaps one of the strongest of these Wild Cards short stories, although far from the weakest. The plot is a murder mystery, told from the perspective of Noel Matthews, who, in this instance, is an innocent suspect. Although it's a perfectly functional mystery, it suffers slightly from not taking much advantage of the setting. Noel shapeshifts and teleports about, but much of the story could be told without this, so it really depends on whether you happen to like Noel and want to read more about them in particular. I find them a bit annoying, so while this story certainly isn't bad and is a nice quick read, it perhaps had more of an uphill struggle than it otherwise might.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another story set in the wild cards fictional universe, written by the series co-editor Melinda Snodgrass. We meet again Noel Matthews, once an assassin and spy, and now owner of a construction company specialized on destructing old buildings using aces superpowers. Noel is an ace himself, able to morph his intersex body into two distinct avatar forms: one able to teleport during the day, and one during the night. The sense of guilt about his past and his fear of being a bad example pushed him to abandon his ace wife and son. But one day a dead body is discovered on the job.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Devil Drives features Noel Matthews-he is so amoral he is incredibly fun to read about, and his abilities are fascinating. In this story Matthews has to solve a murder though of course he is doing it to save his own behind. Author Melinda Snodgrass created Matthews AKA Double Helix so she knows just how to handle the character.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was new to me in that I don’t normally read characters written with ‘special powers’ not lots of them (eg x-men etc). This was a well written story with an aggressive main character that is dealing with family/relationships. A Very Good read 4/5.

[Thom Haneline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, fairly engaging. Any Wild Card story is better than no Wild Card story at all.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read When the Devil Drives at Tor.com. Noir-ish, I suppose. A bit boring at times.

[Luci · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty decent story with Noel. I liked certain elements of it but it really doesn’t move the characters very far.

[Costin Manda · Rating 1 out of 5]

A short story with an unsympathetic character, bad writing and a boring unoriginal story.

[Eugenio · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok. Well written, just felt by the books.

[Andrew Wild-Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining story

So, Noel Matthews has set up a company and is doing fairly well. Obviously this cannot continue! A good short tale set in the Wild Cards universe

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the Devil Drives: A Tor.com Original (Wild Cards)
by Melinda Snodgrass
I waited impatiently to see how Noel continued in his family life. To see the tragedy of his fish out of water as he separated himself from his family. Leaving his wife and young son, convening himself that his past will always haunt him. Noel is framed for a murder he had no reason to commit when Rusty brings down the building on the competitions head. Using his alters and his given wild card Noel will have to skip over the globe to find the reason and purpose of the murder. In finding that he learns that life has changed and that he can be a father without being haunted by his past. Because he was only allowing fear to control him.

[Charl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how the modern Wild Cards stories are delving even deeper in the people bearing the virus.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

First wild card story for me and I loved it!