The Right Idea

By William Mangieri

When Jimmy left the force and started his "Delaney's Investigation Company", he expected to be living the life of Riley. A few months later, and the dust still hasn't had time to settle from the Preiss and Simms murders, but Jimmy's ongoing divorce has swallowed his imagined riches. What would Jimmy do without the city's thriving blackmail industry? That may go away, as candidate Mathews is promising to clean up Barnstow; but Jimmy isn't sure Mathews has the right idea. Read “The Right Idea” and see if you agree.
"The Right Idea" is a detective story with sci-fi elements, and follows "In a Flash" and "Mixed Signals" as the third Jimmy Delaney story, and is also available in “Broken Down: Detective Jimmy Delaney Collection #1.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Mangieri
• Release date: Nov 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310143427

William Mangieri

William Mangieri is a karaoke junkie, former theater student, and recovered wargamer who spends as much time wondering "what if?" as "why not?". He writes from Texas, where he and his family live at the mercy of the ghost of a nine-pound westie.William writes mostly speculative fiction (that’s science fiction, fantasy and horror), although he also has a detective series with a soft sci-fi element (Detective Jimmy Delaney.) He completed writing his first novel (Swordsmaster) in 2019; prior to this, he has honed his skills on short fiction. He has been published in Daily Science Fiction and The Anarchist, and six of his stories have earned Honorable Mentions in the Writers of the Future contest.

Book preview

The Right Idea

By William Mangieri

Copyright 2013, 2024 by William Mangieri

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN 978-1-3101-4342-7

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The Right Idea

Jimmy waited in his corner office for the scumbag who threatened his client. The blackmailer was clumsy - everything that had happened on this case so far told Jimmy he was dealing with an amateur. Good thing - he needed this to go well, needed a good payday at the end of it all.

You want another beer, Jimmy?

He looked up at the imposing figure of Pete Kaczmarek, owner of the bar that he had been officing in for the last three months. Jimmy shook his head, and then pointed at the miniature sandwich board on the table that read: D.I.C.

Oh - sorry, Jimmy; didn't see the door was closed, Pete said, without a hint of sarcasm as he turned and walked back behind the bar.

Pete's a good guy, Jimmy thought. He had been bending over backwards to help Jimmy, wiping out his bar tab, letting him run his fledgling Delaney's Investigation Company out of Kaczmarek's. Of course, part of the reason that Pete was being so helpful was his guilt over what his cousin Max had done; Jimmy had told him to forget about it - it wasn't Pete's fault that Max had framed Jimmy, let alone shot and tried to kill him. He didn't like feeling guilty about Pete feeling guilty about it, but at the same time he was grateful for how Pete was defraying his expenses. Now if only that blackmailer would show up, he could...

A smallish man in a suit walked into the bar, spotted Jimmy, and