A Tragedy of Coincidence

By A.M. Mann

This story begins with a visit from an old friend of her husband. His appearance, while welcome, is not coincidental. A good deed is uncovered and goes viral which brings more unwanted visitations. A retired private investigator has enlisted the help of a local reporter and penned an unauthorized biography of the reclusive billionaire with a murderous past.
Raffe has come to visit Marley Cornish, forty years after her husband and his friend lost contact with each other. His visit is both welcome and amiable but she fears it will not be the last.
She was correct in that assumption. More visitors wish an audience. Ardele Comstock, a retired private investigator who has not resolved one specific assignment finds new information about his only cold case. He enlists the help of a local reporter, Sebastion Vale, to help assemble the story based on what both men know about the reclusive billionaire with a murderous past.
This novel is told from the POV of Sarason’s wife, Marley and she is not pleased by the knowledge her visitors impart. And yet, she is torn by her own secret and the secrets these two men have threatened to publish in an unauthorized biography of her husband.
While she did not know about the missing year, and has chastised herself for her incurious nature when it comes to that time period, she doesn’t deny that what they reveal is possible. She also knows that the story is probably true.
Now she is faced with a difficult decision: should she allow the book to be published or use her vast wealth and power to squash the truth? To her, it is an unavoidable tragedy of coincidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.M. Mann
• Release date: Dec 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005069636

A.M. Mann

I have been a professional writer for over twenty years. And although the lure of creating content for a nonfictional world (finance, business, etc.) remains an attractive alternative to my NEED to write, I no longer have the passion for that genre.Over the last several years, since walking away from that world in 2018, I have refocused my efforts on fiction. I have learned several things as I dabble in various styles of varying lengths. I prefer writing novels. However, a collection of short stories is being gathered. There is a seventh novel, which I have queried with little success. The release on this platform is now scheduled for May 1, 2023.I hope you enjoy my work. It is a bit dark, perhaps slightly misanthropic, or at least my main characters tend to be, but hopeful. Even when isolation is preferable, these tales allow well-meaning social interactions with supporting characters. Ironically, I do consider my novels to be love stories.I have lived in Portland, OR with my wife for almost four decades.

Book preview

Once, when I was twenty-five, I met a man I had not intended to meet. I had a plan and a path and I was on it. We dated, slowly, meticulously weaving our newfound friendship into something that might prove more resilient. I had a plan and a path. But then I watched this man kill one, then two, then three people, with what, even all these years later, could only be described as emotionless dispatch.

And I said nothing. Not a single word to anyone.

Now, forty years later, I am the CEO of one of the wealthiest privately held companies in the country, and still married to that man. If this were a twelve-step meeting, I might be inclined to stand amongst the arranged strangers and say, My name is Marley and my husband killed people.

You, however, are probably saying to yourself: Why didn't she say anything? I've asked that question of myself about once a day over those decades. That's over thirteen thousand opportunities missed.

That all changed recently and happened at breakneck speed to a dizzying effect.

A man named Ardele Comstock made an appointment with my assistant last week, asking that I make a few moments for him. In the ordinary course of events, I don't take meetings with strangers. I run a multi-billion-dollar, Fortune 100 company, and as you can probably guess, the average Joe can't just walk in a request to have a conversation. I'm not that sort of aloof CEO, the kind that puts successful barriers between myself and the world around me. Most of what we do here is philanthropic. So, people are kind of my thing.

But he claims to know something about Sarason, and he's unsure what to do with the information.

My assistant, Aioko, told him that Friday afternoon might prove possible to get a few minutes of my time. Aioko is not so much an assistant, although that is the non-glamorous title she prefers - it keeps her arm's length for any decision making, preferring to carry out my thoughts or my husband's with only the slightest of opinion. She's a good friend.

When Comstock showed up at noon on the prescribed day, I wanted to make him wait. Did I do this because I wanted him to go away, disgruntled into the ether from which he seems to have emerged? Guilty as charged. But, to his credit, and probably his advanced age, which, I am approaching, comes with acquired patience when needed. He was stoically waiting his turn. He, according to Aioko, glided in, sat down after creepily making his presence known, and never moved. It's now just after six.

Is he still out there? I ask.

Yes, she replied, wondering if the man was still alive. I have to reassure myself periodically he's still breathing. He hasn't moved since he sat down.

And he was security screened?

Just like protocol.

I sighed heavily into the receiver. I sigh a lot these days as if practicing to hold my breath for some unknown bad news or being trapped in an airless vacuum. I fill my lungs slowly as if doing some new-age exercise for anxiety, slowly expanding them top to bottom. But unlike those 4/7/8 or 5/5/5 techniques, I do it without thinking.

I'll see him now. I tell Aioko that she can go, but not before she gets confirmation that I will be okay with this strange man. 

Mr. Comstock, who I can only describe as ghoulish, is long and thin, pale and angular, a Jack Skellington character who, like him, seems to possess a poorly stitched face. I have seen him on the security cameras, waiting more patiently than most. Aioko was right to be concerned. The man had not picked up a magazine, uncrossed his legs, or even so much as touched his face. 

I watched him unravel and stand. He smiles at Aioko and bows in a very British way.

Minutes later, we are sitting outside, on the balcony behind my desk. There are cameras here as well, but no listening devices. I usually take my calls from Sarason here because it allows me to catch a few rays of sunshine when it's pleasant or to smoke a cigarette when it's not. 

I'm smoking when he arrives. I offer him a seat.

Ms. Cornish, I do appreciate your time. He sounds British, each word annunciated and well-formed. I had read somewhere that the accent we Americans so admire is a recent invention, that Brits sounded like us three or four hundred years ago. 

I see him take in the view. When Portland is clear, the air is crystal. I can see Mt. Hood in the distance, and with its eastward posture, it is catching the last rays of sunshine on its flanks. He doesn't comment, although I can see he desires to do so.

What can I do for you, Mr. Comstock? This is not a social visit, but I do offer him a drink. He accepts bourbon, noting his preference is Scotch.

May I smoke as well? I desperately wanted to be rude and deny his request, make the meeting as brief as possible, but a cigarette sounds delightful. I am an on-again, off-again smoker, hopelessly addicted to its powers but more substantial than its effort to get a foothold. I light a second smoke, unsure why I picked today, this moment to create a nicotine chain.

While I can't imagine what this person knows about my husband is relevant, I couldn't resist the urge to satiate my curiosity.

Why don't you tell me why you're here.

Very well, he acquiesced as he drew deeply on the filterless cigarette in his hand. As bad as the habit is, my company recognized that free cigarettes for the homeless, the disenfranchised people who, for one reason or another, we're on the streets below this lofty tower, had a calming effect. It had that impact on his expression; he had been waiting in the outer office for four hours.

I know you are aware that your husband has killed people. I did not reply, displaying a well-practiced insouciance. He did it right in front of you, no?

He did, but how does this odd fellow know. That was forty-plus years ago. I didn't ask him how he knew; that would be admitting what he knew was correct. I didn't answer.

There were others. Many others. He nervously examined his hands as he spoke, skeletal protrusions that seemed anxious to molt what little skin was attached. The stains of a long-time smoker, the yellowed spot between the index and middle finger, suggested a man with a death warrant that had expired but had not yet been executed.

As I mentioned, I knew my husband had – emphatically past tense - killed people. I knew it wasn't the first time. And I knew I was wrong keeping his secret, the secret that has become the weakest cornerstone of this incredibly long relationship, looking complacent and dutiful, yet somehow waiting for its moment. Knowing haunts me. Is it still haunting if it becomes familiar?

My husband, Sarason Seed, is a good man. I have told myself this countless times recently, and I suspect that I will be making that argument with more frequency now that Mr. Comstock is desirous at the notion of finally unfolding his tale.

I solidify my business face: It is guileless and dismissive and forces those I am meeting to speak with uncommon honesty. It is my greatest gift.

But Mr. Comstock only had part of the tale to tell. The day before his visit, and seemingly coincidentally, my husband's childhood friend, Raffe, who ironically had many of Mr. Comstock's defining features, angular but with a jauntier air, showed up unexpectedly. Raffe was not here to see me, but he settled on an audience with the wife of his old friend. Sarason was not available at that moment, which beside being rare, was also too bad.

Back to Comstock. The why he was here, the story he had to tell, and the unlikely partner he acquired from a local newspaper, let's face it, ruined most of my day, week, year. Sebastion Vale, the lead writer at the Portland Riverfront Weekly, locally known as PurDub, added some substance to the mystery. Between the two of them, they were threatening to do an unauthorized biography on my husband, the one no doubt resting with great threat on his bony lap. This was, apparently, a courtesy call before the queries were sent. 

My husband is a recluse, by choice, for an excellent reason and not for the purpose I suggested. But this missive might go a long way in helping me understand him, or why. Still, my first inclination is to stop this farce any way I can. However, I must satiate my curiosity which is now formally piqued in a way I have never considered.

Let's start at the beginning. Gerace is a small town in Calabria, Italy. I've never been, but I hear it has numerous churches and convents, so many in fact, it is called a Holy Town. In this quaint hilltop city, surrounded by history and olives, Sara Cinelli, a novice nun, was raped. A soldier for the '‘Ndrangheta, a locally organized crime syndicate, gave way to a drunken impulse one night as she made her way home for a visit with her family. Nine months later, Sarason was born. 

Two months later, the baby was stateside in the home of Russell and Sofi Seed. Sofi is a distant relative of Sara's and, at the request of her family, took the boy in shortly after taking their wedding vows. 

Aside from what I have heard my husband mumble in his sleep, which I will say is a largely sporadic occurrence, this is the beginning and the end of my knowledge of my husband’s past.

I

Raffe

Raffe, or Micah Schoen, announced himself to the company receptionist and then again to Aioko, had the most comfortable quality a man could possess: casual charisma. That's Aioko described it. His visit was not unexpected. He had called when he saw the announcement on CNN. We have been getting a lot of those calls.

It resulted from one of those end-of-the-hour fluff stories that let the hosts banter energetically with each other, the on-air pleasantry that at once seems rehearsed. The local stations do it as well, just not as seamlessly, as if their TV husband/wife relationship was always one step from divorce to a larger market.

It was to be expected, considering the reclusive nature of my husband. My husband, the great Sarason Seed, had, for lack of a better word, fucked up his reclusiveness. Our PR department, unused to handling these sorts of snafus, was caught unawares. We suddenly needed a good defense for something that we had not created internally. That was the normal course of their work. That defense would be much more inclusive now that saran was the focus; however, no one under our employ who knew anything had a fungible reason that they could solidly stand by if questioned. We're a small company with a sizable footprint. Now, the cat was out of the proverbial bag. Someone would be asking if we, or me, could comment on what we knew and when. The trouble was, I knew and was originally okay with what he was doing. He does it quite frequently.

Knowing sucks. Hiding what you know sucks even more.

Sebastion Vale was one of those media personalities asking for a comment. He had made a name for himself locally and even on a national stage as more and more outfits like CNN drag the local circuit for pleasant faces and a voice that doesn't use 'um' as a thinking crutch. He was, I'll admit, a good writer, engaging and energetic, possessing a twenty-five-cent vocabulary that was not force-fed to his less-literate reader. When I first met him, he seemed unaware he had a face for television and a dichotomous personality, one that suggested he didn't really comprehend his boyish handsomeness.

But I know now the young Mr. Vale wasn't sincere; he was looking to verify what he already knew. Sneaky fuck. 

The message that an old childhood friend of my husband in requesting a visit gets relayed to me, worming its way up the proper channels until it lands on Aioko's desk. I had given her a list of keywords to look for in any request for an interview. Micah's had six of the seven.

First off, he called Sarason Sonny. He hadn't used that name since grade school and, although my husband was immensely popular for all the wrong reasons, Micah or Raffe were among the handful of people who used that name. Sarason is funny that way. If you shorted his name and used it without his approval, he shut you down much the same way a Paul might if you called him Paulie or an Elizabeth might if you uttered Lizzie. These were names for inner circles.

The other words: Dorwich, Connors, Temosa, Arianne, Suzie. How did I get all of those words from a stranger calling in cold? I had, or through Aioko I had instructed the receptionist to bait the caller with the following: I will be more than happy to relay your message, Mr. So-and-So if you can name six things about Mr. Seed's upbringing that no one else knows. Ninety-nine percent of the incoming calls could not. Sebastion Vale could because he did his research. Mr. Comstock could as well. He had conducted a different kind of research, but he knew a great deal of backstory. And, of course, Raffe.

I could see why my husband liked Raffe. He had that Saturday morning easiness about him, a newspaper and coffee on the porch sort of fellow who seemed unharried by the rest of the world. He claimed he was retired, an engineering professor from William & Mary, never married, never returning to Dorwich since his high school graduation.

I didn't imagine that time in my life would ever resurface. Not that I didn't think about it every day. No kidding, Ms. Cornish, every damned day. When I heard Sonny's name, er, Sarason's name on the news, I mean, how could I resist. I would not have seen him surviving this long. 

He was angular like Comstock but had a robustness about him that the other lacked. His hair was solid white, full, and swept-back as if trained to hug his head, not a single follicle out of place. He was the same age as Sarason, separated only by three days. My husband had told me that they shared birthday parties because his parents, the aforementioned, long since deceased Russell and Sofi Seed, never threw him one.

You can call him Sonny, Raffe. Sarason is a mouthful. And quite frankly, as awkward as it might sound coming out of stranger's mouths, I think he enjoyed it back when he actually interacted with people.

Without a doubt.

You came because you heard his name on the news?

I did. 

It was late afternoon, and Raffe struck me as an affable man, a teacher you might have been drawn to, auditing his class because your best friend told you that you wouldn't regret it. And his accent drew me in; words I knew took on a slightly different intonation that made me listen closely. They say Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs possess some of the most difficult accents to master. Even Sylvester Stallone labored with his portrayal of Rocky or so says my husband. Tony Soprano came awfully close, also, says my husband. 

Can you stay, Raffe, and talk. I would love to hear some out-of-school stories about the man I've been married to for decades. Sarason is out-of-town at the moment. I'm sorry.

That's on me, Ms. Cornish. I corrected him and told him to call me Marley. He was that kind of polite, even though we were both the same age or thereabouts.

I can order dinner. We can eat on the balcony. I cannot explain why I was nervous, wondering if he would refuse.

That would be delightful. Sonny needs to have his laundry aired. I smiled. Only someone in the sixties would make that sort of reference.

I told Aioko to have dinner ordered and set up on the outside terrace. 

The story he told made me cry inside.  

Aired Laundry

"We all took the same simple aptitude test, Sarason included. It was standard amongst grade-schoolers in the '60s. I have no idea how I did, but Sarason answered every question right. Not because he tried. He didn't. It just happened. I only know this because the nuns made it a very big deal, and not in a good way.

"I'm hugely biased. In the house where I grew up, all nuns were good, tasked with harnessing the young minds in their care, herding them along the right path of spirituality and proper religious behavior. This vocation lent itself to their holy mission. While they did what any concerned authority might do, calling his parents to discuss the cheating, they were wrong to do so.

Those nuns had no evidence that he was cheating. Whatever crime or transgression they had blamed him for or accused him of being complicit in, and there would be many in Sarason's life, no one asked if he could have done what he was accused of doing. No one was wondering if what he was supposed to have done was even possible.

I asked him, what did they think he did?

"Good question. The nuns at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Grade School did not conduct trials; they enjoined meetings. These personal conferences pulled fathers inconveniently from their jobs. Mothers were equally inconvenienced. Younger children had to be farmed out to a neighbor or relative; sometimes, my mom would take in his younger siblings; a favor requested meant a favor indebted. I think that galled the Seeds more than anything else. They were pretty private people. 

Anywho, the law of the land may have suggested you are innocent until proven otherwise, and yet, the show of public shame these meetings intended to elicit was often a more substantial burden to carry than the crime, which in young Sarason's case, did not happen. That law was also not applicable in the court of Sister Bridget Michael.

Sister Bridget? He's mumbled that name in his dreams. His dreams were one unidentified name after another, all out of context. I couldn't help but picture a filing room post-earthquake.

She conducted these meetings in the tight confines of a wood-paneled, windowless office that served no other purpose than to bring the accused, the parents of the accused, and the accuser together. Sarason would visit this place numerous times over his eight years in this school, and truth be told, I think it got a little easier on him as he got older.

He threw air quotes around 'a little easier.' I must have changed my expression, or relaxed, or started to lean back because Raffe reassured me that the story doesn't get better from that point. I leaned in again.

You know, I recognize that nun's name. Sarason, er, Sonny, occasionally mutters that name in his sleep, when he sleeps, that is. I have, over my lifetime, gotten pretty good at reading the need in people to be acknowledged, that smile as you pass, the pat on the back sort of stuff. Raffe's expression, the way the center of his brow bunches like a wrinkled logjam, was just that sort of need. He's mentioned you, but only when he was awake. And stoned.

He still smokes?

Every day, all day, for as long as I have known him. 

Raffe grinned with a flush of nostalgia. Good for him. I think weed really helped him in high school, you know, tamp down the shit in his head. Of course, I knew what shit he was referring. 

Anywho, Sister Bridget Michael was the principal, the one we all referred to as Mother Superior. I never had any issue with her because I kept my head down. She was an imposing figure, though, all five feet of her. She had a deceptive grin, warm and inviting, giving her the look of a saintly aunt. Except, she wasn't like any aunt any of us kids knew. Those habits were scary, even for us Catholic kids who grew up in it. She dressed in the typical black and white habit, a rigid bandeau, a crispy white wimple, and a veil adding contrast framed her face, her skin slipping along the edges as her facial muscles relaxed with age. She seemed at least a hundred years old, like maybe old enough to have met Jesus. She had this wooden-beaded rosary hung purposely from her sash, adding the visible sign of catholicity. She exuded a daunting mysteriousness enhanced by this curious symbology wrapped in an ancient myth. To Sarason, she was intriguing; to the rest of us, she was Jesus' wife.

Good God? I said this aloud.

Good God would be his opinion. You can probably tell I have considered those years quite a lot. The formative years, as they are wont to be called.

"You know, what's funny or not so amusing. As kids, we never paid much attention to adults. Sister Bridget was an exception. So were Sonny's parents. My parents, in hindsight, were odd, close-knit Germanic types. But Sonny's parents were even more peculiar. 

The Bowling Alley on a Sunday Morning

I poured Raffe another drink and invited him onto the terrace. It's funny that things you can take for granted, the backdrops of our every day, are often uncommon to strangers. Raffe was tall, with sloped shoulders like a white spruce. He was inhaling deeply. The city had a welcome petrichor aroma; the heavy clouds still looked threatening but had revealed a ban of blue in the east, giving Mt. Hood an unexpected cameo. 

How, if I might ask, did Micah become Raffe? He smiles and reached up to stroke his long neck.

African artiodactyl, the tallest ruminant. The name stuck, and after a while, no one knew me anything other than Raffe. When we moved away after high school, it sort of followed me. That's on me.

It has a nice familiarity to it. We paused as the waiters brought our dinner. Yes, I have waiters on staff, but only because we can afford it.

"We hatched this plan as kids do. I remember him saying, 'Raffe, it's a good plan.' I remember disagreeing.

I'm not so sure, I tell him. The plan was to skip Mass and go bowling. Not sure if you're aware, but the nuns, the catechism, our parents always told us that missing Mass is a mortal sin. But our boy Sonny would have none of that.

"The loosely formed plan was hatched on Saturday morning. Going to Mass on your own sans parents was considered the first stage of adolescent independence, and at age twelve, Sonny was anxious to flex that independence, maybe more so than me at that age.

I argued, albeit weakly, that not going to church is criminal. Always the debater, he says, 'Criminal like the cops will arrest you criminal?' I think I offered up some feeble-ass argument that God will see you. To this day, I still feel like I'm surveilled, watched from on high. That omnipresence stuff has lingering side effects. But Sonny just laughs, says something like, 'God, what? Sees you? Will smote you? What? 

I grew up Jewish, I tell him. The whole Catholic thing was a mystery; it still is. Raffe tells me that he gets that. Faith is an unforgiving master, I think, but I encourage him to go on. 

"The Catholics, of which I am officially alumni, are big on the mysteries. But so are the Jews, if memory serves. It's a tight leash no matter which of the big four faiths you ascribe. Anywho, it is a heavy weight, people attending Mass on a Sunday morning, on holy days, sometimes every day, braving all sorts of weather, rosaries in hand, silently mouthing the words of each prayer, women in veils, Latin responses to pleas for salvation, hymnals open to page 345, Ava Maria; these were the flock. 

"Sonny couldn't see why. We talked about it over the years. It bugged him. The confidence that their God was his God, their creator, was also his, that his existence was beholden, even penitent, and humbled, and trusting that this God was providing oversight and guidance to his young life seemed absurd. He bought into none of it. And the less he got, the more I questioned it as well.

"For the other two kids, skipping Sunday mass was a thrill, a forbidden act of defiance, a sin to be forgiven in the darkened confessional on Saturday, the resulting penance from a priest who knew you and might even, over the following week, suggest he was watching you. Even the creepy kind of 'watch you.'

Pardon my French, but Sonny gave no quarter to the thought of sin. he thought it was all bullshit. Honestly, it was thrilling to be in concert with the devil.

I know that feeling all too well.

I remember there was an argument over who would get the bulletin. When you went, and especially if you skipped Mass, you needed proof for your parents that you were there, and that color one-pager was proof enough for most parents. Eventually, Sonny went in a got it.

I didn't have a friend like Raffe, the kind of pal-around friend that just did what you did, or you did what they did. It was easy to imagine the two of them together: Sarason, carefree and winsome, while Raffe assumed the role of cohort burdened with the questions guilt provides and overly cautious.

"It has been many years since I talked about this. That day went from excellent to fucked in a heartbeat.

"We were headed to the Fernwood Bowling Alley. They had a long-running Sunday morning special. The kids called it the Heathen Discount, although I don't have any actual proof of that. For a flat rate, you could play as many games as you could in two hours before noon. 

"We didn't have much time. And it was no short hike from the church to the bowling alley. As kids often do, the path of the least resistance prevailed. We jumped waist-high chain-link fences that divided the small yards of the post-WWII housing projects we grew up in, twin and row homes that sprouted on the outskirts of big cities like Philadelphia. The most significant danger was coming within blocks of where we lived as we passed.

The Fernwood Bowling Alley was the anchor for a strip mall and, because it also housed a bar, it opened earlier than any other nearby businesses. Like at seven in the morning early. There were fifteen, maybe twenty people in the building on this Sunday morning, including the workers. The air inside was thick, with a cacophony of alley sounds echoing hollowly across the empty lanes. Thick smoke hovered in a permanent fog tainting the air, the perfume of countless years of burnt nicotine and tar, and the odors of spilled beer on the carpet mingling with the sickening effect oil applied to lubricate the lanes. This unusual bouquet mingled further with the previous night's sweat of obese men in colorful shirts exerting their will over a thirteen-pound ball with holes.

I couldn't help but recall professors that I had who would paint vivid pictures as they taught. The mind's eye, they called. I let Raffe describe it without interruption. The good ones always remembered where they were headed when they veered dramatically off course. I had only been to a bowling alley once, on a date when I was seventeen. I told my father about it, describing the same kind of thing Raffe was explaining. My father shook his head, lamenting that the ancient game played by Egyptians was now reduced to a marriage of offensive sounds and scents and apocalyptic foreboding. 

"I remember coughing. I was such a wimp. We went directly to the shoe rental counter. On the other side of the counter, the bar was catering to a handful of men, who were drinking, even at this early hour, some from thick buffalo china cups, while others sipped beer directly from brown bottles. No one seemed to be talking.

"The counter was unusually tall. We were kids, but I remember that counter as unnecessarily high, like a perch. Behind it, a small man sat on a stool selling scorecards for games, renting shoes, and otherwise lording over the operation of the lanes. He barely looked up. 

"Off to the right, behind the men sitting at the bar, there were pool tables. There was a waist-high barrier walling off this area. Inside that small room, cue balls silently moved across the well-worn velvet. I remember two men leaned on wooden sticks, thoughtfully calculating the arrangements on the table, one older and one younger. A couple of onlookers slouched on stools along the wall, beer bottles and burning cigarettes perched on a narrow shelf. 

Today though, Dominic, and Stevie, and I got only as far as the rental counter. We would never get close enough to throw a ball down those brightly lit alleys in the distance. Nope. Shit was about to hit the fan in a big way.

I asked him where Sarason was.

"Outside having a cigarette. Smoking was apparently a new habit, something I didn't even know about, and I thought we were best friends. The next thing we know, the older guy in the pool room runs past us, still carrying a pool cue, and out the door. The younger man, who wasn't so much running as walking purposely fast, followed him.

"One minute later, there are gunshots. We all run out, us kids, the drunks at the bar, the

Reviews for A Tragedy of Coincidence

[PPetillo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Completely unexpected. Technically a sequel but stands on its own.