Point Blank: A Short Tale of Macabre Family Faults

By: Justine Avery

Narrated by: Derek Shetterly

Length: 52 mins

Publisher's summary

If you can't stand the pressure...ask your mother to stop pointing the gun at your head.

Steven is a writer, by all accounts of self-proclamation. But no artist can be expected to work under serious pressure, especially not when the pressure consists of his own mother indenting his tender skull with the muzzle of the pistol held in her hand.

Suddenly, it's write or die for Steven. He better tap away on that typewriter or expect to be extracted from the land of the living before he's had the opportunity to finish anything he's ever written. Not to mention that his recently departed father lying on the floor beside him should supply enough motivation.

When Steven manages to frustrate his murderous mother to no end, his wish made under duress actually comes true. Mother's vanished...along with all evidence of the foregoing incident ever having taken place.

Is his beloved father really dead? Is his own mother now a criminal on the run? Can he truly never cure his lifetime disease of writer's block?

Only one person can uncover the truth and set the world to rights again. That would be Tim, Steven's much more successful, though younger, brother. If only Tim would actually believe Steven's retelling of the frightful situation he's just managed to survive.

Someone's got to fix the latest family faux pas. And everyone in the family knows it can't be Steven.

In the dead of night, two brothers battle sibling rivalry, serious mother issues, one heinous surprise after another, and a lifetime of family strife to get to the bottom of it all and uncover what's been lying beneath all along.

©2015 Justine Avery (P)2018 Suteki Creative

Point Blank

Justine Avery’s story moves from being thrilling to hair raising and gets to be scary. How family members can turn against each other and even think of death is crazy and astonishing. We follow the story of Steven, a writer, and his crazy family. The plot is entertaining and fascinating. Some parts of the book are shocking and not for the faint hearted. Justin Avery however made the book captivating throughout for the reader to enjoy. ‘Point Blank’ is an amazing book for lovers of crime, action and mystery.

Quick Read

The story begins in media res which initially confused me as we were not given in context or backstory about the mother who is the antagonist until half through. In addition, I think her character could have been fleshed out more. What motivated her to do the things she did and treat or family the way she did. Why were all the men so afraid to stand up to her for so long? Why did she seemingly prefer one son over the other. I liked the twist at the end, but I wish more explanation was giving for why she came up with the plan. Overall, I liked the story, the acting, and narration. I just wished it were longer.

Surprise ending with a tasty twist

Having read a couple of Justine Avery's pieces, I was expecting a fluffy, cerebral story but this was gritty and different. The family depicted here had a macabre sense of humor, with a twist of irony. Adult language was peppered throughout, some of it justified by the circumstances. The ending took me by surprise, and I liked it.

gripping short tale

A story of an aspiring writer and a who dunnit theme. Very dramatic and chilling read.

Unexpected twist

Well that story was more than a bit unexpected! At first I found it a bit dark and disturbing. But the thing about Justine Avery stories is that they tend to be short and if you stick with them, they tend to reveal something ‘more’. In this case there was a very unexpected twist and I. Her typical fashion it was full of dark humor. Overall a solid read. Narration was very good