Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Comedy Shorts: Four Humorous Fiction Short Stories
    Comedy Shorts: Four Humorous Fiction Short Stories
    Comedy Shorts: Four Humorous Fiction Short Stories
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    Comedy Shorts: Four Humorous Fiction Short Stories

    By Robin Storey

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Comedy and mystery, with a blend of fantasy and a dash of romance
    ‘I recommend these stories to those who enjoy a bit of the macabre with a blend of mystery and a twist of supernatural on the side.’ Readers’ Favourite

    SLEUTHING FOR BEGINNERS
    Angela has always had a secret ambition to be a private detective. After her neighbour dies suddenly she launches her own investigation, with unexpected results.
    A PEACEFUL DEATH
    George, who has been obsessed with death since his father died, is visited by The Angel of Death, who strikes an unusual bargain.
    A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND
    Ali, the sole beneficiary of her uncle’s will, learns that he may have a secret, ill-gotten fortune stashed away. But she soon finds out she’s not the only one determined to find it.
    THE MUSE
    Esther, a struggling romance writer, meets her muse Alfred, and he moves in, providing her with a constant source of inspiration. But is the cost too high?

    If you like comedy, mystery and fantasy, and you’re looking for a book you can read on the train or in a couple of spare hours, this book of short stories is for you.

    ‘I love Robin Storey's dry wit and realistic characterization of the foibles of human nature.’ Pamela Mariko.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobin Storey
    Release dateNov 13, 2015
    ISBN9780987536648
    Comedy Shorts: Four Humorous Fiction Short Stories
    Author

    Robin Storey

    After many years as a freelance writer, I'm now hooked on fiction writing and love being an indie author. I live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia - beautiful one day, perfect the next - where we complain if the temperature drops to below 14 degrees Centigrade.I've written eight books so far in a variety of genres. I began with comedy, but soon discovered my true calling was in darker fiction. I love reading crime and suspense so that's what I write. I've just published Obsession - A Crime Of The Heart, Book 3 in the Night Nights series of short, stand-alone crime/suspense novels. An Affair With Danger is Book 1 and Secret Kill is Book 2.If you'd like to find out more about my books, you can find them here on Smashwords or on my website. https://storey-lines.com/my-novels/And if you subscribe to my readers' group on my website http://storey-lines.com you'll receive a FREE e-book of four short crime stories On The Edge.I love connecting with readers and other writers, so please come on over to my Facebook page and say Hi. https://www.facebook.com/RobinStoreywriterI'm a certified book nerd (too many books, not enough time!) and am a useful team member on quiz nights for the literary questions - but not much else. I enjoy hiking and chilling out at the beach, which is five minutes drive from my home. My partner and I walked the full Camino Frances pilgrimage (775 kilometres) across northern Spain in September and October 2016. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I would highly recommend it.I don't have any unusual hobbies or strange pets.

    Read more from Robin Storey

    Related to Comedy Shorts

    Related ebooks

    Mystery For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Freshening

      Sep 15, 2018

      My cashier’s black hair was beautiful. Though not unlike mine, it was shinier and thicker, and hung glamorously down to her waist. It looked strong, too, like Christopher Reeve’s in the Superman movies. A strand of Superman’s silvery hair could hold

      21 min read

    • Article

      Life After Death

      May 27, 2022

      Life After Death
      14 min read

    • Article

      Literary MagNet

      Dec 15, 2021

      “I like to think of myself as someone who continually questions truths,” writes Hasanthika Sirisena in their essay collection, Dark Tourist (Mad Creek Books, December). Sirisena does so, in part, by telling their own stories alongside those of other

      3 min read

    • Article

      Gigi Will Know

      Jan 28, 2023

      Gigi Will Know
      3 min read

    • Article

      POISON ON Pink Paper

      Jan 2, 2020

      POISON ON Pink Paper
      8 min read

    • Article

      A WING AND a prayer

      Sep 28, 2021

      A raven saved my life Cate McMurray, 47, from West Midlands I ’d always known I was different. As a small child, I used to see and hear people who weren’t there. One day, I was playing hide ‘n’ seek with my two sisters, and tucked myself away in a cu

      4 min read

    • Article

      Ice cream DREAMS

      Aug 4, 2021

      Ice cream DREAMS
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Silhouette Artist

      Jul 25, 2019

      The Silhouette Artist
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Thing That looked Like Me

      Sep 28, 2021

      The Thing That looked Like Me
      3 min read

    • Article

      Caught between TWO WORLDS

      Nov 2, 2023

      Caught between TWO WORLDS
      2 min read

    • Article

      POISON ON Pink Paper

      Dec 23, 2019

      POISON ON Pink Paper
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Worst betrayal

      Apr 21, 2022

      The Worst betrayal
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Healthy Cigarette

      Sep 6, 2022

      A Healthy Cigarette
      5 min read

    • Article

      Visitor from HELL

      Dec 21, 2021

      Visitor from HELL
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Girl I Knew Somewhere

      Dec 2, 2021

      The Girl I Knew Somewhere
      6 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2022

      First prize 10 and under Tang Li, age 9 Palmetto Bay, FL My name is Anisa. I was in Hawaii on vacation. I enjoyed sipping refreshing drinks, overlooking the turquoise ocean, and dancing with others, before I overheard that the priceless Fire Ring wa

      10 min read

    • Article

      Supportive Husband

      Sep 12, 2023

      There were less intimate places available, so it was odd when a woman took the seat directly facing mine across the subway aisle. I looked up from my book and right back down: a couple of months before, we’d gone home together. She had a Southern acc

      22 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Nov 4, 2021

      When my son was around one, many items of his clothing began to inexplicably disappear. I can’t over-emphasise the inexplicable nature of what occurred – all the items unquestionably disappeared in my house. The house is always secure, and there is n

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Duplex

      Jun 9, 2020

      I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart. My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey,

      21 min read

    • Article

      The Charm

      Jul 30, 2020

      The Charm
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ny Nourn: The Woman Convicted Of Murder And Pardoned – Who Now Fights For Other Battered Women

      Jun 2, 2021

      When Ny Nourn entered Central California Women’s Facility, the largest women’s prison in the world, there was every reason to believe she would never walk free on American soil again. She was just 21, and had been sentenced to “life without parole” f

      12 min read

    • Article

      We’re All Just Butterflies

      Sep 29, 2020

      We’re All Just Butterflies
      4 min read

    • Article

      Without A Trace

      Sep 8, 2022

      Without A Trace
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Comedy Shorts

    4.5/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the stories and the quick read was just right.

    Book preview

    Comedy Shorts - Robin Storey

    Comedy Shorts

    Four short stories...

    ROBIN STOREY

    This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person alive or dead is purely coincidental.

    Copyright Robin Storey © 2015

    www.storey-lines.com

    The right of Robin Storey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Act (Australia) 1968.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the copyright owner, except in the case of quotations used for reviews or articles about the book.

    Cover design by Judy Bullard

    www.customebookcovers.com

    eBook formatting by Maureen Cutajar

    www.gopublished.com

    Contents

    Sleuthing for Beginners

    A Peaceful Death

    A Girl’s Best Friend

    The Muse

    SLEUTHING FOR BEGINNERS

    pic1

    I knew there was something fishy about Beryl Markwell’s death right from the start. I felt it in my bones, with all the instincts finely honed from years of burying myself in crime novels.

    As usual, my flatmate Mia accused me of living in an ‘alternate reality.’ She’s studying psychology.

    ‘You have way too much time on your hands – being unemployed is doing your head in.’

    ‘I’m not unemployed, I’m just in between jobs. Like you’re in between men.’

    Mia gave me a look that said it all – that I was in between men too, and my in between period was a lot longer than hers. But I didn’t care as much as she did. Or I pretended not to.

    ‘So the woman down the road, who wasn’t exactly young, dies suddenly. What’s so fishy about that?’

    ‘She wasn’t old either, she looked to be in her fifties and was super fit – always out power walking or doing Tai chi classes in the park. She made me feel like the original couch potato.’

    ‘Angie, healthy people die all the time. How do you know she didn’t have some illness that no-one knew about, like one of those heart viruses?’

    I shook my head. ‘I have a feeling it’s something more. Anyway, Rick said the police are investigating.’

    Rick from the corner store had broken the news to me that morning when I called in for milk. ‘Ian from next door found her, on the bedroom floor in her nightie. Dead as a doornail.’

    ‘The police always investigate when someone’s found dead,’ Mia said. ‘It’s just routine.’

    ‘We’ll see,’ I said.

    *

    I tossed and turned all night thinking about Beryl. Suicide wasn’t a likely option. On the few occasions I’d spoken to her, she was cheerful and friendly, and almost bursting out of her skin with health and vitality. She certainly didn’t have the demeanour of someone about to do herself in. Something was not right about her death.

    I’d wanted to be a private detective since I was eight and discovered Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven. I fancied myself as a cross between independent Kinsey Millhone and sassy Stephanie Plum, with a large dollop of Miss Marple’s astuteness and enough of the sex appeal of Charlie’s Angels to get me out of trouble. Or into trouble. When I was downsized from my admin job six months ago, I’d asked my job agency if they would help fund me to get my private detective’s licence. My case manager looked at me as if I’d asked her to cough up for pole dancing lessons.

    Now a chance to prove myself had fallen into my lap.

    ‘I’m going to find out how Beryl really died,’ I said at breakfast.

    Mia rolled her eyes at me as she nibbled her toast. ‘For God’s sake, you’re not still on about that! What superhuman powers of deduction are you going to call on? Or maybe the answer will just manifest itself in a psychic vision.’

    ‘Despite your cynicism, I’ll tell you. I’m going to start with the obvious and question the neighbours, to see if they saw anything suspicious.’

    ‘And how are you going to do that without them telling you to mind your own business and slamming the door in your face?’

    ‘That I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to wait and see.’

    After Mia had left for Uni, I dragged my beaded evening bag out from the depths of my wardrobe, locked the apartment and crossed the road.

    Beryl had lived across the road and up two houses. Her home, with its warm ochre tones and Mediterranean villa ambience, stood out in a street of unpretentious brick boxes. I didn’t know her neighbours, but took a punt that Ian lived on the farthest side and was the man I’d seen occasionally watering his front garden.

    I knocked on the front door. The same portly, middle-aged man answered it.

    ‘Hi, I’m Angela, I live across the road.’

    I held up the evening bag. ‘I found this on the footpath. Does this belong to anyone here?’

    He peered at the bag. ‘Merle’s out shopping, but I’m pretty sure it’s not hers. Anyway, we haven’t been out at night for ages.’

    ‘Okay, thanks. Sorry to bother you,’ I rushed on, ‘you must be still in shock after discovering poor Beryl.’

    He drew in his breath sharply.

    ‘You can say that again’ He held out his hand. ‘Sorry, I’m forgetting my manners. I’m Ian.’

    We shook hands. ‘I talked to her a few times,’ I said. ‘She seemed like a nice person.’

    ‘She was a real lady, in the old-fashioned sense of the word.’

    ‘And she seemed so fit and healthy.’

    He shrugged. ‘You never know when your time’s going to be up. I must admit when I saw her lying on the bedroom floor my first thought was that she’d been attacked and robbed, but the house was spotless, as usual. Then I noticed a pile of vomit on the floor beside her, so I thought maybe she’d had a stroke.’

    ‘Do you know what the cause of death was?’

    He shook his head. ‘I haven’t heard. The police came and had a look around

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1