Tales of Duplicity and Discontent

“TALES OF DUPLICITY AND DISCONTENT” is a collection of four long stories or novellas that share the common thread of exploring the many facets of love, unconditional or otherwise, and the different ways it can shape lives and sometimes turn them upside down.

“THE FATHER”

Gerry Huntington is a 51 year old life long bachelor and a highly accomplished businessman who enjoys an enviable position in society. He lacks of nothing but lately something has been eating away at him, he feels that there is something missing in his life, and that is children. He finds himself longing for them as much as he disparaged their “intrusiveness and pesky nature” in the past, and once he’s sure that, that is what he wants to do, he still is confronted with the rather sticky problem of which one of his girlfriends he will ask!

“CHRISTMAS 2001”

Gustav Henn is a retired world renowned classical pianist who dies on Christmas Eve and whose skeletal remains are only discovered a few years later. The police inspector who is assigned the case is intrigued and determined to find out how someone could have died in such anonymity and not have been missed by anyone for so many years. A dust covered diary that he finds besides Gustav Henns’ remains leads him in the right direction.

“LOVE FORBIDDEN”

Patrick McCormick has been happily married for three years to a ravishingly, gorgeous young actress whose career is soaring. He loves his wife as well as his job as General Manager of the Ballet Company. Life just couldn’t be better for him it seems, that is until his wife’s younger sister returns from an extended trip abroad and he meets her for the first time. As it turns out, that encounter changes everything.

“SKIN DEEP”

Linda Staunton is a highly intelligent young woman and an uncommon beauty, both exterior and interior. She was raised in bitter poverty by a determined, upright and caring single mother, who taught her the importance of family, kindness to others and of doing the right thing. Linda is a person with a large heart who is serious and sincere and an inspiration for her family and to the people around her. When tragedy strikes at the pinnacle of her youth, Linda experiences more heartache and physical trauma before she is twenty-five than most people do in a lifetime, but in the face of adversity, she digs in and she slowly discovers within herself, a strength and a resilience that she did not even know she had, and she learns firsthand, about the curative powers of the heart.