"The Illusion of Control"

Another piece of flash fiction, this one clocking in at just under nine hundred words.

My first draft of this story ran only 550 words, and I sent it to Shotgun Honey, which published my "Father Knows Bets" in 2017. They rejected "Illusion" with a very kind email that said they thought it wasn't fully developed. I agreed, and after adding another four hundred or so words I decided that it was now good enough that I'd want to see it appear in print, not just online -- and Shotgun Honey doesn't have a print edition. So I sent it to Kerry Carter at Mystery Weekly, and she bought it.

Once again, the title came first: I spotted an article online about something called "the illusion of control" and immediately thought Okay, that's a story title. The story itself is set in an elevator in the office building at 44 Wall Street in the Financial District of Manhattan. That address is an Easter egg: 44 Wall is home to the editorial offices of both Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Thanks for the loan of the lift, EQMM and AHMM!

"The Illusion of Control" came out in the June 2021 Mystery Weekly and was my seventh appearance in MWM.

Return to Bibliography.