Rest in Pieces

by Percy spurlak Parker

Working in the shadows of Woodrow Wellington Hanks, the famed literary critic for the New York Daily Tribune Times, I was in the prime position to observe the events surrounding the aftermath of his death.

To his throngs of readers his death was a particular horrid and grotesques occurrence, seeing as he'd been shot several times and then dismembered, his body parts scattered throughout the city. To the writers who suffered the public poisonous lashings of his Critic's Corner column, and oft times career ending prose, the same news was cause for joy and celebration.

His death mimicked one in a recent novel he'd blasted, Bloody Millions, by Barry Bestist. The novel chronicles the life of a Columbian underling, and what he does to climb to the top of the drug cartel, each time killing in exotic fashion the person one rank above him.

Hanks had berated the novel as outrageous lackluster dribble, without a modicum of believability. Naturally the police jumped at Bestist as their number one suspect, but Bestist was at a book signing at the time Hanks was murdered. I was elated when the police released him. Personally, I'd found his novel both entertaining and informative, especially the chapter on how the main character painstakingly dismembered the body.

Now that the Critic's Corner will be carrying my byline, I plan an extensive rebuttal of Hanks review of Bloody Millions. Barry Bestist has become my favorite author.