Long Looks at Short Fiction: Severence by Tom Doolan

"Severence"
Tom Doolan
Kindle, 0.99

Tom Doolan is a busy man.  In addition to working full time, taking classes, maintaining a family life, and playing a weekly game of D&D, he also finds time to write.  I get tired just thinking about it.  Maybe he's younger than I am, I dunno.

What I do know is that I like his work.  This is the third story he's published himself (reviews of the other two here and here). Each of them is well-written, exciting, and a lot of fun.

"Severence" is about a young girl named Severence, who has trained herself to become an assassin after her father was murdered.  While it's not clear if she actually did the deed herself, his second wife, Severence's step-mother is responsible.

Severence is getting into position to kill the woman as the story opens.  Someone has decided the woman needs to die and has chosen Severence to fulfill the contract.  Fine with Severence.

There's just one slight problem.  The target has a bodyguard who is nigh unto indestructible.

Severence thinks she has a solution to this problem.  There's only one way to find out...

This one was fairly short, so I'm not going to give any further details.  The pace was relentless; you won't get bored.  Severence's plan was a complicated one, and it would have been nice to see it run into more problems than it did.  However, given the ending, one I should have foreseen and didn't, I'm more than willing to let that point slide.

I have no idea if this is a stand-alone or the initial entry in a series.  I'm hoping it's the latter.  Either way, check this one out.  Once again Tom Doolan has produced a short ebook with a good cover, good formatting, and most importantly, a good story.