Triangles

Triangles: Reveiws

 In the initial novella, Triangles, three couples  end up on a sail boat headed out to scatter the ashes of the  overbearing family patriarch. At first I thought this was going to be a  mystery “who-done-it” like Death on the Nile, everyone  claustrophobically confined to a large yacht. But it turns into a  suspense story where the reader is on the edge of her seat waiting to  see who is going to do something horrifying and when are they going to  do it.
Semprebon is good at creating that suspense. And he knows how  to crank up the tension. He engineers intricate overlapping secrets and  betrayals, both past and present, that drive the strains and  antagonisms between the various family members and their spouses. His  characters are believable and consistent, as is his dialogue.
The  author has a masterly touch at double hearings/seeings. He accurately  depicts how people do not hear each other, or hear what they want to  hear, or what they believe. As he jumps from one character’s point of  view to another, we see clearly the ways they fail to understand each  other’s words and actions. Is the closeness of two bodies an attack or a  seduction or something else? Nefarious or innocent?
After setting  up these extreme conflicts, he follows the logic of the dramatic  situation with deadly precision to its unrelenting and horrendous  conclusion.
As he says in his introduction, “Read at your own risk.”

The following two short stories share the same tensions, the same kinds  of misunderstandings, and the same vivid characters. “Grave Incident”  again focuses on family tensions and the death of a disreputable father.  “Q d’Etat” is overtly political and depicts another example of  dangerous human misunderstandings. And it gives a bleeding-heart liberal  like me a window into the mindset of the MAGA, Q-Anon mindset. For that  alone, this story should be read by a wide audience. 

Proven results that speak for themselves.