The Agreement A Thriller Short Story Includes a Preview of the Jack Daniels Thriller Last Call edition by JA Konrath Jack Kilborn Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : The Agreement A Thriller Short Story Includes a Preview of the Jack Daniels Thriller Last Call edition by JA Konrath Jack Kilborn Literature Fiction eBooks 
How far would you do to get out of a gambling debt?
THE AGREEMENT is a short story that originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in March 2005. It currently appears in the Konrath story collection 65 PROOF.
Because THE AGREEMENT ties into the Jack Daniels thriller LAST CALL, Konrath has made it available on its own. Also included is a chapter from LAST CALL.
Warning Though this only takes a few minutes to read, the images will stick with your for life. This is a wickedly mean story. So let the reader beware...
If you are a more sensitive (or adventurous) reader, this handy scale rates specific categories from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) to give you some idea if this is your kind of book.
THE AGREEMENT by JA Konrath
Bad Language - 2
Scary - 6
Violent - 9
Funny - 3
Sexy - 0
The Agreement A Thriller Short Story Includes a Preview of the Jack Daniels Thriller Last Call edition by JA Konrath Jack Kilborn Literature Fiction eBooks
When I finished this short story, it reminded me of a Tales From The Crypt story. The story delivered and did it quickly. With little fanfare, we're immediately pulled into the setup for the main event. Bernard Huston is playing cards and gambling with a mobster. And even worse, he's borrowed a large sum of money to do so. Of course, Huston loses and must pay back his debt. That is when Huston and the mobster come to The Agreement. Just like a Tales From The Crypt episode, The Agreement is the crux of the story; why the prelude was written in the first place. This is what we've been waiting for. At the beginning of the short story, Konrath says that he was not able to sell the story because it was too violent. Personally I would have qualified it as gruesome or intense instead of violent. Something that will make you cringe in sympathetic pain! Then at the end, the mobster throws out his final line that would sound perfect coming from The Cryptkeeper and followed by his maniacal laugh.Product details
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The Agreement A Thriller Short Story Includes a Preview of the Jack Daniels Thriller Last Call edition by JA Konrath Jack Kilborn Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
It only took me a few minutes to read this story, but it was an entertaining few minutes. I stumbled upon a horror story by Konrath (Kilborn) a while back and read all of the horror books and stories I could find by him. Never a disappointment!
I have read a lot of Konrath and wish all were as entertaining as this short story was. Try it and enjoy.
There's a kind of surprise ending here that just about knocks you out of your chair. No spoilers, but it's worth it, and I find most surprise endings to be really disappointing.
Cringeworthy. I gave it four stars instead of five because it seemed to move a little too slowly at times.
Mr. Konrath does warn the reader he thought the story was too violent to sell. Yes, there was a warning. For being such a short story, he puts the reader in the room, our nails in our mouth when our hands aren't over our eyes, but peeking because we had to - yes, we are there. Magnificent writing. But I'm glad to be out of that room.
I don't usually read short stories, but did this one after the author wrote about it in "Last Call." The story was entertaining and showed the reader the future of Konrath. This author has brought me many, many hours of reading enjoyment. He showed a special talent even at the beginning of his career. This is a quick read and one you won't soon forget.
This roughly 5-minute short story (previously published in “Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine” in 2005) was apparently made available (thankfully for free) as an ebook for the purpose of including a teaser chapter from “Last Call.” That latter novel is a collaboration of Konrath & Blake Crouch, supposedly the conclusion of a long saga featuring Crouch’s villain Luther Kite and of course Konrath's familiar leading lady Jack Daniels (10th in her currently 11-book set).
The tale features a gambler who cannot afford to pay off his losses to a mobster, who is more than prepared to torture him to death as a result. Only a bit of a twist at the end saved this violent account from being a 1-star affair. Worth what was paid!
J.A. Konrath, creator of the popular Jack Daniels mystery series on , gives readers a treat with a standalone short story, "The Agreement," that he's currently offering for free in an effort to familiarize new readers with his work. According to the author, the story was one of the first he wrote, but it shows the same offbeat humor (and occasional attention to gruesome detail) that he has displayed in the Daniels books. Fittingly, Konrath eventually sold the story to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, for it harkens back to one of the classic stories that made its way to Hitch's TV series, Roald Dahl's "Man from the South."
Like Dahl's tale, "The Agreement" is about gambling and two gamblers in particular. The protagonist, known only as Hutson, is a typical problem gambler who just doesn't know when to quit. He winds up in a high stakes poker game with a mobster named Little Louis, and Hutson calls the last pot with money he doesn't have. When he, loses, naturally, and, just as naturally doesn't have any way to raise the money quickly, Little Louis offers him a way out of his predicament. If Hutson can hold his hand on the burner of Louis' kitchen stove for ten seconds, Louis will forgive the bet, and Hutson can leave with his various bones intact.
Now I, or most other reviewers, could tell you the entire plot of "The Agreement" in two paragraphs, the one immediately above this one and an additional one revealing what happens to Hutson next. But such a synopsis wouldn't be nearly as much fun as the way Konrath tells the story. He doesn't just rush through the details in an effort to get to his punchline. Instead, he lets the story play out, detailing Hutson’s doomed efforts to phone someone willing to help him out and Louis’ rather sadistic enjoyment at discussing the details of Hutson’s predicament with his henchmen. Konrath displays a good bit of his typical dark humor here, and the effect on readers is the same as if they were listening to a skilled raconteur, spinning an after-dinner tale to an appreciative audience.
Konrath doesn’t spare readers the gritty details when it comes time for Hutson to “work off” his debt to the mobster, and some readers may find the description a bit graphic. I’m no prude, but even I thought it could have been edited down just a bit. It does however, give the story’s ending a good bit more punch that it might have had otherwise. Indeed, like Dahl’s tale, the ending ot “The Arrangement” is one that readers won’t soon forget, and, might well, months or years from now, think, “that the story where ,,, “
“The Arrangement” is a quick read; most people can get through it during a lunch break (although I’d advise doing so after they’ve eaten and, hopefully, digested their meal). The page describes the story as 33 pages long, but, in reality, the actual story takes up a bit less than half of that, with the remainder being a preview for one of Konrath’s novels. Since, ”The Arrangement” is an freebie, readers can’t complain about the amount of new material they’re getting. Instead, they can simply enjoy (albeit not over a meal), a gruesomely twisted tale from a gifted storyteller.
When I finished this short story, it reminded me of a Tales From The Crypt story. The story delivered and did it quickly. With little fanfare, we're immediately pulled into the setup for the main event. Bernard Huston is playing cards and gambling with a mobster. And even worse, he's borrowed a large sum of money to do so. Of course, Huston loses and must pay back his debt. That is when Huston and the mobster come to The Agreement. Just like a Tales From The Crypt episode, The Agreement is the crux of the story; why the prelude was written in the first place. This is what we've been waiting for. At the beginning of the short story, Konrath says that he was not able to sell the story because it was too violent. Personally I would have qualified it as gruesome or intense instead of violent. Something that will make you cringe in sympathetic pain! Then at the end, the mobster throws out his final line that would sound perfect coming from The Cryptkeeper and followed by his maniacal laugh.
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