I'm A Writer
A woman washes blood from her sleeve. Her husband packs a bag, a bandage on his hand. Across the courtyard, an author watches, notebook already open. For most, this would be a call to the police. For this writer, it's the genesis of a masterpiece.
This literary psychological suspense novella plunges into the chilling mind of an observer who finds more pleasure in crafting the perfect sentence than in confronting a gruesome truth. Every suspicious detail, every clandestine movement, is meticulously recorded - not for evidence, but for plot.
When the line between reality and fiction blurs, justice becomes secondary to narrative. They needed a witness. They got an author.
- Richard - Author
- Pamela - Richard’s literary agent
- Johanna - Angelo’s wife
- Angelo - Johanna’s husband
- Gabriel - Building superintendent
- Duwayne Caruso - Detective
- Richard is struggling with writer’s block.
- Richard sees Johanna and Angelo arguing in the apartment across the courtyard from him.
- Johanna has blood on her sleeve and Angelo has a bandage on his hand.
- Angelo leaves the apartment carrying a canvas bag.
- Three hours later, Detective Caruso tells Richard that Angelo has been found dead at a storage facility and police are trying to locate Johanna
- Richard gets a text from an unknown number saying ‘You saw.’
- Richard realizes the sequence of events matches one of his old outlines for a book called The Good Witness about someone who sees things and writes them down instead of helping.
- Richard goes into Johanna and Angelo’s apartment and finds a copy of his outline for The Good Witness with Johanna’s notes written in the margins.
- Richard looks through his texts with Johanna and the dates he edited The Good Witness outline and realizes that he was writing the story Johanna had been telling him about her marriage.
- Johanna calls from the unknown number and tells Richard that Angelo found the outline of The Good Witness, realized it was about his marriage and became angry with her for sharing their marriage details with Richard.
- Johanna followed Angelo to the storage unit and asked him to give her the money and her document wallet that were in the canvas bag.
- Angelo refused and things got physical, Johanna pushed Angelo and he fell and hit his head but he was alive when Johanna left.
- Johanna asks Richard to lie to the police about what time he saw Angelo leave the apartment but he refuses.
- Caruso and Pamela both tell Richard not to turn the events of the day into a fictional story, but he does it anyway.
I found the premise of I’m A Writer intriguing, but the execution fell short for me. The choppy writing made it difficult to get immersed in the story, and the cryptic elements often left me wondering whether the author was trying to hint at something meaningful or whether I was reading too much into it. I enjoy a story that makes me question what’s really going on, but here, the ambiguity felt more frustrating than intriguing. The ending was also super anticlimactic and left me disappointed after everything the story had led me to wonder about. I wouldn’t describe this as a thriller, and I struggled to connect with the story despite its interesting premise.
If you like cryptic mysteries, ambiguous storytelling, and unusual premises, then you may enjoy this book.
- Domestic abuse
- Death
ASIN: B0GZFFFQTN
Publication Date: October 17, 2026
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.
