Sunday, May 17, 2009

Blogging the Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction: A Matter of Ethics


Robert Randisi's story "A Matter of Ethics" has a pretty great setup. Private eye Nick Delvecchio is summoned to a house in Brooklyn by a wife who wants him to follow her husband to see if he is cheating...on his diet. Delvecchio, quite rightly, thinks this is an odd request, but he takes the assignment. The husband is scrupulous about his dietary habits, as it turns out, but not quite as scrupulous about his marital vows. Delvecchio is left wondering whether to tell the wife about her husband's girlfriend. He decides to follow the husband one more day, only to see him fleeing the woman's house a few minutes after arriving. This situation, of course, leaves Delvecchio with another ethical dilemma. This one, of course, is a little more serious, and it leaves Delvecchio scrambling to stay ahead of the police. Unfortuately, the resolution is not as good as the setup, but I'm not sure how it could be.

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