REVIEW: #29 The Beneficiary

Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes

Title: The Beneficiary

Author: Marshall Thornton

ASIN: B001R4C07O

Pages: 34

Rating:

Synopsis: (Taken from Amazon.com)

Set in the ’90s during the Los Angeles riots, this contemporary noir follows a struggling real estate agent who’s cooked up a plan to make a big pot of money. Hanging around a Narcotics Anonymous meeting she finds a former addict struggling through the last stages of AIDS. Offering him support, she mortgages her home and uses the money to buy property in his name. Property she insures. As she waits for him to die so she can collect her big payday, she begins to suspect he may not be everything she thought.

Review:

A quick read, The Beneficiary will you have guessing until the very end. I thought this short story was very well written, original, and quite intriguing.

The main character is a former escort turned real estate agent. She wants money and she doesn’t care how she gets it (never has). So she comes up with this insane plan to marry someone who is dying and commit insurance fraud with home insurance. She goes to this meeting filled with addicts and finds a sad looking fellow who is dying of AIDS. Chrissi has found her perfect match.

There is not much I can go into because it is such a short story and anything I do to describe what is going on, will only take away from the story itself. I do recommend purchasing it on amazon (right now it’s available in Kindle version) for less than a dollar. (You can click on the above amazon link) and it will take you directly to the page.

The Beneficiary did not turn out exactly like I assumed it would. There were quite a few unexpected twists that will make the story hard to put down. Like any short story though – I sure wish it had been longer! But I really think, in this case, length isn’t always better. It leaves off exactly where it should without any unnecessary filler fluff. The Beneficiary is a well recommended read.

Popularity: unranked [?]

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