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    Anyone Can Die
    Anyone Can Die
    Anyone Can Die
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Anyone Can Die

    By James LePore

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    James LePore’s first novel, A World I Never Made earned raves from reviewers, readers, and fellow authors alike. Blogcritics called it, “An outstanding first novel, and a wonderful thriller.” Bella Online said, “I highly recommend this compelling suspense story filled with vivid characters and haunting storylines. A story that will stay with the reader long after the final pages.” And M.J. Rose, the acclaimed author of The Memorist said A World I Never Made was, “A compelling page-turner — one of those wonderful books with characters as strong as the story and a story worth reading. Don’t miss it.”Now LePore returns to the characters of A World I Never Made to present us with three suspenseful and unforgettable stories:Till Death Do Us Part: A young Pat Nolan and his wife are on their honeymoon in New Mexico when they find a bond they did not know they had as they are forced to confront trouble in the form of a surly trio of locals.God’s Warriors: Megan Nolan, a cynical American woman on her own in Europe makes a life-changing decision that both reveals and belies her true character.Max: Max French, a quirky, deadly and, in his own eyes, oddly lovable FBI agent faces a personal drama that will set the course of his future.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFiction Studio Books
    Release dateOct 8, 1126
    ISBN9781943486403
    Anyone Can Die

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    Reviews for Anyone Can Die

    3.5/5

    16 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Set in the world of A World I Never Made, these three short stories feature the characters Pat and Lorraine Nolan, Megan Nolan and Max French. The first short story is Till Death do us Part; Pat and Lorraine Nolan meet three ne'er-do-well natives on their Mexican honeymoon. In God's Warriors, cynical Megan Nolan witnesses a shocking act that calls into question her loyalty to friends or her loyalty to money. In the third short story, Max, FBI Agent Max French exacts a deadly price years after a very personal crime. I enjoyed Anyone Can Die by James LePore. It was an very interesting introduction to the characters of A World I Never Made. I give it an A!
    • 3/5
      Okay, honestly? This will be a super short review. How can it not be, when the book it self is so short, I read it in less than two hours? Anyway, this book was alright. Not great, but not bad either. I was a little confused as to why it was written in the first place, since it was so short, however, after going back and reading more about why Mr. LePore wrote this book of short stories, it is clear he did to let his readers get to know more about his characters without taking away from the original stories. I think that he did a good job in that aspect, as this book is about his 3 main characters in his book.So, if you are looking to know more about characters without it taking away from the purpose and message of the stories you read, then books like this would be great to have before you read a novel. Mr. LePore did a good job at creating this collection for his readers to understand the characters and their personalities better, without making the novels themselves so long and drawn out with the tedious descriptions that some novels have of the characters withing. Three stars to Mr. LePore!
    • 4/5
      "Anyone Can Die"contains three short stories about characters taken from his novel "A World I Never Made". While this book is a super fast read at only forty-six pages, he easily provides enough information so that you feel as if you are familiar with the characters,and really want to know what happens after the story ends.The first story is called Till Death Do Us Part, the longest of the three shorts, its about a couple who have just gotten married and are on their honeymoon. There is a scene in the story where they are confronted by some ruffians, and I must say I was on the edge of my seat while it played out!God's Warriors is about Megan Nolan, and in the beginning of her story I sort of figured her for someone that was shallow and a user, but as the story unfolds we get the true story of her character, which wasn't what I assumed at all.Max is the final story and also my favorite.At the age of twelve Max French, thought that he saw his step dad kill his mother, but he was ruled out as a witness to a crime because of the confusion over what he saw. Something that changed Max's life forever only garnered his stepfather six years behind bars, but the confrontation that takes place one his stepfather is released from jail allows Max to believe he is finally over it and able to move on!Each of these stories really held my attention. For me, having never read anything by James Lepore it was the perfect way to sample his work, and I must say, this sample has me anxious to read the story A World I Never Made, because I am anxious to see how the characters play out in the novel!
    • 4/5
      About the Book: This is a quick read, at only 46 pages, and it is three short stories involving characters from Mr. LePore's debut novel, A World I Never Made. In the introduction, Mr. LePore tell's us about writing his first novel and how, in order to keep the novel moving, as it is a thriller, he didn't want to bog the reader down with a lot of background information. In this book, Anyone Can Die, he brings back three of his main characters. He tells one story for each of them, that he feels gives them some of their characteristics and strengths that, as he puts it, cause them to "chose to live rather than die." I liked Mr. LePore's writing style, and, even though the look into the character's lives are brief, it left me wanting more. You can read either one of these books first, but this reader is going to search down his novel so I can learn more about them.
    • 4/5
      This book contained three short stories. Each story focused on a separate character/couple that was originally portrayed in James LePore's first novel, A World I Never Made.The stories were well written. There was enough depth to the characters to be able to understand them without it taking up most of the short story. Reading about them made me want to read A World I Never Made just to see how far they go, if they interact with each other, etc.My experience with short stories has not been favorable. The majority of the time I've felt like I couldn't get to know the character at all. I've felt like the story was rushed through with no real depth or feeling to it. This is not the case with the three short stories within the covers of Anyone Can Die. With these, I was instantly drawn into the stories. And, even though they were short, I felt the stories were completed ... although I did keep thinking about what happened afterwards, but don't we all do that with good stories?Oh, and in case you wondered where the title came from, here's your answer:"Have the courage to live. Anyone can die." - Robert Cody
    • 4/5
      This is a very short collection of what I would term as "vignettes" rather than short stories. They should probably be read as an introduction to or as a companion to Mr. LePore's novel, A World I Never Made, as they give a deeper insight and background glimpses of the characters in that novel.A perfect read to get your reading juices flowing when time is short, I must say that I enjoyed Max the most, because it had a definitive sort of ending, with a definite course of action, and a well-executed confrontation scene.Till Death Do Us Part had a milkier sort of ending, but a very taut confrontation scene which gets your heart racing.God’s Warriors was milkier still for me. It was just not very well-defined, and the character and her motivations were too enigmatic; there were scenes that weren't fully explained, and a rather vague confrontation scene.All in all, though, I enjoyed this read. It definitely makes me curious about A World I Never Made as well. I will definitely want to look that one up.QUOTE:Max could never be sure, but he though he saw his stepfather kill his mom.BOOK RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars

    Book preview

    Anyone Can Die - James LePore

    Cody

    Introduction

    In the suspense novel, plot and pace are supposed to be more important than character. I can understand why. Long explorations of a character’s personal history, even if told in dramatic fashion, will inevitably distract the reader from the excited expectation or uncertainty about what may happen next that is the primary attraction, the point, as it were, of the genre. In the early drafts of my first novel, A World I Never Made, these explorations were done in flashbacks that had the benefit of allowing my characters to slowly reveal themselves to me. I was forced to concede, though, that they would be distractions to lovers of suspense novels. Ultimately, because of the deftness of my editor, Lou Aronica, and my willingness to discipline myself, I was able to severely condense certain passages, eliminate others altogether, and even keep myself from writing some of them in the first place. The result was, I believe, a cohesive, well-paced novel, populated with characters whose personal journeys meld with but do not distract from what is essentially an action-filled plot.

    However, though entirely satisfied with the novel’s fit with the world of genre fiction, I was nevertheless uneasy about the relationship that its readers would have with its central characters. Would Pat Nolan’s bitterness—a bitterness that resulted in his virtually abandoning his daughter—ring true? Was Megan Nolan’s conversion from cynic to patriot believable? Was there something in her past that the reader did not, but should, know that showed she had something resembling a human heart? I wanted readers to like my characters, to love them actually, as much as I did, and I was far from confident that they would.

    Then, prior to publication, Lou asked me, as part of the marketing plan for the novel, to write three short stories involving the book’s main characters. The proverbial light bulb went off in my head. This is my chance, I said to myself, my chance to both honor my characters and respect my readers.

    The human heart inflicts and suffers terrible wounds, and yet there is a path to both love and redemption if we look for it, if we are not afraid to live. Whether you read these stories or the novel first, it is my hope that you will recognize the wounds sustained and inflicted by Pat Nolan, his daughter Megan, and the oddball F.B.I. agent Max French, and see that, despite those wounds, they each in their own way chose to live rather than die.

    James LePore

    South Salem, NY

    September, 2010

    Till Death Do Us Part

    So, was it worth the wait? Lorrie Nolan asked.

    Did it hurt? Pat, her husband of just under five hours, replied.

    A little, but then it felt good.

    Pat remained silent. He placed his right arm around Lorrie as she turned on her side and pressed against him. Overhead, moonlight spilled through a small skylight, covering them with a silvery blanket. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her strawberry blond hair spilling like liquid gold over his shoulder and down his arm. Through the cabin’s screen door, which was only a few feet from the foot of the bed, he could see Lake Tahoe, black and sparkling in the moonlight. His orgasm had been mind-blowing, but the tension of the last two days had not drained out of him, as he hoped it might once they made love. It was foolish of him, he realized, to think it would. He was the same person now as he was twenty minutes ago. Lorrie had said once that she saw his core and that it was strong and beautiful. What core?

    Lorrie got up and, taking the towel she had placidly placed under her earlier, stained red now, she went to the bathroom. Pat watched as she crossed the small room, afraid to think of what a great body she had and how beautiful she was. He would be twenty-one in two weeks, a milestone that meant nothing to him, since, until recently anyway, he was sure he was already a man. An amateur boxer with fourteen wins and a draw under his belt; a heavy equipment operator since the age of eighteen, working on bridge sites in Ohio and Kentucky and a tunnel in Canada; helping support his widowed mother while his older bother, Frank, was in the service: if anyone had asked, he would have said that he had earned the right to call himself a grown man.

    But that was before he met Lorraine Ryan, the incredibly beautiful Lorraine Ryan, with her long, silky red-blond hair, her green eyes and her dazzling smile. She had laid down a couple of rules: no sex until we’re husband and wife, quit the boxing, go to school for something. And he had obeyed: a boy again, desperately in love, despite his struggle to retain what he thought of as his dignity, which led them into a couple of terrible rows early on. Was that only six months ago, he asked himself, could it only be six months?

    Lorrie came out of the bathroom, still naked, and sat cross-legged before him on the bed. Like they had been hanging out naked together all their lives.

    You didn’t answer my question, she said.

    What question was that?

    Was it worth the wait?

    Yes, Lorrie, it was.

    Are you sure?

    As she said this, Lorrie began stroking Pat’s thighs through the clean white sheet of their bed. Up one and down the other, coming close, but never touching his penis, which shortly began to lift the sheet as it grew. Pat blushed when he realized what was happening. He watched her breasts hanging heavy and free as she leaned forward to increase the pressure of her stroking. Before he met Lorrie, he had rarely blushed, even as a boy. Now his face was hot and red, like a teenager’s at a whorehouse.

    Kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth, Pat said. For thy love is better than wine.

    At this Lorrie quickly pulled the sheet away and knelt over Pat, straddling him, looking him directly in the eye.

    The Song of Solomon, she said.

    Yes, I’ve been saving it. Pat was breathing rapidly now, and pressing his crotch up into Lorrie’s.

    You know, Paddy, she said, reaching down to guide him into her, "you may have potential. You

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