View source for Marty's Master by Suzanne Elizabeth Reed

{{infobox1
|title=Marty's Master
|author=Suzanne Elizabeth Reed
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=A short story which highlight just how people can become involved in the sex trade or domestic slavery, without anyone realising that they've gone missing.
|rating=3.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=66
|publisher=AuthorHouseUK
|date=July 2017
|isbn=978-1524683368
|website=
|video=
|cover=Reed_Marty
|aznuk=1524683361
|aznus=1524683361
}}

Margaret was nervous about going for the walk around the lake on her own, convinced until the very last moment that her husband would relent and go with her.  She made it to the Blue Forge Club House where her friend Laura worked behind the bar, relieved that she'd managed to leave the drunken man who was Marty's master and some other suspicious-looking men behind her.  Laura looked uneasy: her dead sister's widower, Avel, had remarried and his new wife, Elena, was in the clubhouse with Avel's children - three teenage girls and a boy who was little more than a toddler.  Elena didn't look in the least pleased to be there and despite Avel's promises to pick them up, he was nowhere to be seen.

It's very easy for people - young people in particular - to slip through the net and for there to be no one who is aware that they've disappeared.  In this case Elena and the children have come from the Ukraine: they're visitors without any strong connections in the UK.  You'd like to think that the perfect storm of events which remove or incapacitate the people who might raise the alarm over what happens as being impossible, but such things do happen and it's on coincidences such as these that people trafficking, child abuse and domestic slavery thrives.

The plot has been carefully constructed: Suzanne Elizabeth Reed has made certain that there are no gaping plot holes and despite the fact that this is, essentially, a short story she does a good job of character development.  You sense that Margaret could annoy with her nervousness if you were with her for long, that Laura isn't to be trusted.  Is Marty's master really just a man who's a little too fond of alcohol, or is there something more sinister going on?  And what about those men who are hanging around the margins of the lake, occasionally swapping something with the fishermen?  The location of the Blue Forge Club House is excellent: it sounds impressive, but the interior, the staff are anything but top notch.  It's a seedy situation where anything could happen.

The story is well told and I read it through in one sitting, but I did want Reed to relax in her telling of the tale, for her wording not to be quite so formal, so businesslike.  I'd also like to see her spread her wings and go for a bigger story which might well suit her excellent imagination rather better, but I would like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.

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[[Category:Short Stories]]