Challenge 354 Response

“The Troubleshooters”

by Tabaré Alvarez

Thank you, sir; I love the Challenge question! As I reread parts 4 and 5 (I found no typos), I found myself getting involved in the Challenge question, seeing how, as a reader, I could answer it. Thank you so much, once more, for giving the story such a close reading; it surprises me, from your insights, how much of what I had in my head made its way successfully to the reader’s. It’s a great feeling.

Tabaré Alvarez

And thank you for the very kind response, Tabaré; it’s the kind of thing that’s great for everybody’s morale.

As the Challenge explanation says, nobody has to write us a formal essay or a term paper; if a question provides food for thought, it achieves its purpose. The Challenges are one of the parts of the Bewildering Stories experience that I enjoy the most, and all readers and contributors are free to participate in proposing both questions and answers.

I must add that “The Troubleshooters” will come as a breath of fresh air to our readers and contributors alike. The murder mystery that isn’t one is a rare and often elegant surprise in the genre of detective fiction.

But the main interest in “The Troubleshooters” is what I call for lack of a better term the romantic interest. It’s very easy to write about romance, but to be truly successful, the work must be romance, and that’s what we have with the very likable Dutch and Mrs. Medina.

Keep up the good work!

Don