'Clear As Glass' – Denny Flowers (Black Library)


Page Count: Forty Pages

Turns out that the weekend really wasn't one for getting much reading done. It was very much a weekend though for losing the book I was reading (and enjoying), watching 'Big Ass Spider' with my eldest daughter, hanging out and watching 'Big Bang Theory' with eldest and youngest daughter and even managing to find a little time to catch a nasty little cold as well. See? I can be productive when I want to be ;o)

I did want to kick off the week with something on the blog though so, on my way home, I had a little look to see if there were any Warhammer short stories that appealed. There were, of course there were, and this time I went for a little Warhammer Crime, a part of the Warhammer 40k universe that I haven't had a lot to do with and wanted to get to know a little more...

Life is cheap in the hive city of Varangantua but information? When everyone is on the take, information is without price and the promise of something big has led Probator Raemis and Sanctioner Stann to a bar and their contact within the Khaadi Crime Syndicate. Who is playing who though, and will there be anything of the bar left standing by the time the truth comes to light...?

'Clear As Glass' has clearly been written with at least one eye on Probator Raemis' tale continuing to be told, whether that's more short stories or perhaps even a novel. Personally, I'd be happy with either but I'm holding out for a full length novel as Flowers has set up a story that needs that kind of page count to really do it justice.

I love a short story where there's so much going on in not that many pages. Everyone is a suspect in something where there is more going on than anyone really knows and the tension is handled superbly as the story progresses, leading into a crescendo of violence that takes 'Clear As Glass' from a noir encounter straight into... Well, if one drunk guy can do that to an entire bar, I'm wondering what that guy could have done if he was sober, lets put it that way. Breathtaking to see it play out but just that bit on its own was worth the £1.99 'entry fee'.

'Clear As Glass' was perhaps a little too short to give us the surprises that it wanted to but that just raises the tantalising prospect of what Denny Flowers could do with the same premise in a much longer book. I hope he gets that chance, I'm going to have to dig out more Warhammer Crime stuff now, just to see if it's as good. 

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