Unlikely partners, p.1
Unlikely Partners, page 1
UNLIKELY PARTNERS
Issue #2 (Summer 2023)
Thrill Ride - the Magazine
EDITED BY M. L. BUCHMAN
Contents
Unlikely Partners
Three Makes a Crowd
M. L. Buchman
The Manky Head
E. Chris Ambrose
The Backwoods
Shells Legoullon
Unlikely Partners
Blaze Ward
Under the Influence of Elmore Leonard
Diana Deverell
Eiffel in Love
Anne Swardson
On the Rails
C. A. Rowland
Huey and Madelyn, Dead Heat
Wil A. Emerson
Pure Survival Instinct
Daniel C. Bartlett
Squirrel and Worm
David H. Hendrickson
About the Editor
Your Next Great Read
Read Even More!
Unlikely Partners
M. L. BUCHMAN
The more I think about this topic, the more I think it may be the single most universal trope in fiction. Sure, there are: The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Odd Couple, Remington Steele, and Bill and Ted—which were my idea generators for the submissions. However, I find this concept deep in every genre.
Much of the tension in romance is built on the premise of “there’s no way these two folks should be falling in love.” Yet they do and that is the adventure. I certainly have done that in many of my novels and stories.
Science fiction and fantasy are rife with human-alien-fey plus everything-else-imaginable partners.
In mystery we get Sherlock and Watson, Gamache and every member of his team, Poirot and Hastings.
Action-adventure has been rife with them since the days of Robin Hood / Maid Marian right through Dirk Pitt / Al Giordano / Rudi Gunn.
In thrillers even the lone wolves (one of Season #2’s themes) get unlikely partners. Jack Reacher always gets a one-book companion who is unlikely (a female cop in an otherwise corrupt town, the lover of a wealthy villain…).
In addition, unlikely partners often point to unequal ones as well, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Pride and Prejudice, and all of the modern retellings in every genre from The Phantom of the Opera to Fifty Shades of Grey.
Universality
Why do we so love unlikely partner stories?
Nope, I’m not going to delve into psychology or metaphysics. I will, however, delve a little into writing.
Unlikely and/or unequal partners create tension. Two people pulling in different directions, or perhaps the same direction but at different angles. Perhaps for very different reasons.
There have been many famous analyses of stories over the years. An early one from Georges Polti in the nineteenth-century stated that all literature could be classified as one of thirty-six basic plots.
At the other end of the spectrum, in 1959, Foster-Harris said there were only three types of stories: happy ending, sad ending, and tragedy (which sounds like two to me).
Somewhere in the middle ground can be found the proponents who state that there are only four (or sometimes five) stories to be told, ever: Man versus Man, Man versus Nature, Man versus Self, and Man versus Society. Some toss in Man versus Machine and/or Man versus God.
Most of the tales in this issue fall into the first category. Some few delve into other aspects. But what most intrigues me about this is that “versus” in the middle. This is the tension aspect I mentioned above.
However, I can’t imagine that it is the conflict alone that draws us in and makes us keep telling unlikely partner stories.
I think we’re also drawn in by the healing aspect of story (okay, maybe I’m getting a little over into the land of psychology). Not necessarily our own healing, but that of the characters. In every one of these tales, we ride through the accumulation of tension (problems) and conflict (more problems) and moral dilemmas (yet more problems), and arrive at the far more important resolution for these unlikely partners. Then we think, “Hey, if they can survive that, maybe I can…” That is one of the great powers of fiction.
Whether the partnership ends happily or sadly (or tragically), each of these stories takes us on a journey to that resolution.
We humans are social animals. Even those of us who are painful introverts (most writers, including your editor), need others and our society to function (without my wife, I’d be so lost). After all, I like a sliced banana on my cereal as much as the next person and they don’t exactly grow wild here in Massachusetts. That banana takes a society to make happen (write me a thriller about that for next year).
I certainly enjoy both the tension of the unlikely partners and the resolution that makes these stories so satisfying to read.
The Stories
As in the prior issue’s introduction, I will avoid speaking of my own offering and leave you to your own conclusions there.
If “The Manky Head” doesn’t make you laugh out loud, it won’t be for lack of trying. Unlikely partners and unlikely brothers relate in glorious ways.
Crossing into “The Backwoods” the partners are less clear. This is one of the stories that definitely wanders into the partnership with nature category.
Once again, as he did in the first issue, Blaze Ward has brought us a Fatima adventure of his unlikely warrior as she launches on a new quest in the simply on-point named tale “Unlikely Partners.”
When one falls “Under the Influence of Elmore Leonard”, only the most peculiar partnerships could occur. And two do in this charming piece of 1986 Berlin diplomacy.
“Eiffel in Love” perhaps pushes the limits of the intent of the magazine. I asked for strictly real-world stories. But this one is so charmingly told that who am I to say it can’t be real. It also explores an unusual love affair and is the sole story to enter the realm of Man vs. Machine. That one of my travels led me to West Africa definitely helped tip the balance toward including this lovely storytelling adventure.
“On the Rails” returns us solidly to the reality of 1800s America, this time for a sweet tale in the era of the Nevada Silver Rush.
“Huey and Madelyn, Dead Heat” is a different take on the true meaning of that most unlikely partnership of all—perfect partners.
“Pure Survival Instinct” explores two unlikely partnerships: one very bad and, the more unlikely one, very good.
We wrap up the issue with a WWII Paris story “Squirrel and Worm”, which the Derringer-winning author labels as one of his new favorites. With how many excellent stories he writes, he finds that to be a useful classification.
Three Makes a Crowd
M. L. Buchman
About M. L. Buchman
USA Today and Amazon #1 Bestseller M. L. "Matt" Buchman has 70+ action-adventure thriller and military romance novels, 125 short stories, and lotsa audiobooks. PW says: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead will clamor for more.” Booklist declared: “3X Top 10 of the Year.” A project manager with a geophysics degree, he’s designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, solo-sailed a 50’ sailboat, and bicycled solo around the world…and he quilts. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.
Why I wrote this story
This story was a challenge because Unlikely Partners is one of my favorite tropes, I love throwing two very different people together and watching what happens.
In my military romantic suspense—the 42-book and 70-story Emily Beale Universe—I do this in almost every one. The elite Army pilot from Boston money and the East LA street fighter-turned-helicopter gunner, the gregarious family man and the introvert orphan, the wounded in soul and the wounded in body, the woman trying to shed her family and the man who risks death to defend his, the calm center of the team and the chaos demon… You get the idea.
This carried over into my thrillers. My Dead Chef series includes the warrior who literally never speaks teamed with the hacker woman who never shuts up, among others. My Miranda Chase technothrillers center on the autistic air-crash investigator who only cares (intentionally) about the planes, contrasted with the mash-up of other team members who never could have functioned together without her (unwittingly intuitive) guidance.
Each of these are different universes. By that I mean—by design—my Emily Beale universe does not overlap with my Dead Chef or Miranda Chase series. They each have different tones, serve different presidents, and their side characters do not overlap. The sole exception is a fifty-foot boat with maroon sails that occasionally floats by. It’s from my Where Dreams contemporary romance series. I spent three years of my real-life twenties rebuilding her, so she gets carte blanche to sail through any story she wants.
My fans keep begging me for a crossover novel between these three separate worlds, but that’s never going to happen (hmmm, I should be more careful about what I say).
But writing something fresh and unique for Unlikely Partners had me stumped, until I thought of the meta level: what could be more unlikely than three very different women who were never supposed to meet on the page.
And, yes, the report of the mammoth bones was real and made national news the week before this story was written.
(To my fans: this story fits in none of the series’ timelines.)
Three Makes a Crowd
M. L. BUCHMAN
Normally Kate loved location shoots. This wasn’t one of those. It was supposed to be, but it wasn’t.
“Well, howdy, Ms. Stark. Are you the kinda woman who gets all fired up for an Ic e Age cookout?”
Definitely no.
The American Museum of Natural History, her favorite museum in the whole world, lay only fifty blocks uptown from her apartment in New York City’s Chrysler Building. One of her favorite outings on a quiet Sunday was to work her way uptown and across Central Park; hitting a pretzel vendor here, a hot dog vendor there, or maybe something unexpected like fish-ball noodle soup or that amazing Mexican-French fusion cart she’d only ever found once.
Sometimes she’d wander to the museum after work as it lay a bare thirty blocks from her offices in Rockefeller Center. Of course, in the bitter chill of January, she took the company car.
But if this event kept going ahead the way it had begun, this jerk was going to ruin it for her.
The museum’s board had invited her to do a themed cooking show from inside the museum. Being owner of Cooks Network, the largest of them all, she couldn’t turn it down. Free publicity for them, she’d also promised to roll in all of the advertising revenue it generated, so a donation and a nice write-off for her. A winner all around.
They’d finally settled on the Paul and Irma Milstein Hall of Advanced Mammals. To film the event with mastodons, woolly mammoths, and saber-toothed cats as backdrops, it would play wonderfully.
To match the decor, she’d chosen Ice-Age Paleo as the show’s theme, which also let her include the educational features that had proved so popular.
The science research had crashed much of the premise of the paleo diet in recent years. Genetic studies had shown that the human anatomy, rather than remaining fixed on a diet from the past, actually evolved rapidly to the changing variety of foodstuffs. In another blow, related studies on unearthed skeletons proved that there was far less meat in the true paleolithic diet than the commercialized one.
Kate had therefore mandated no animal proteins. Besides, she didn’t want the museum to be stuck removing layers of burned animal fats off their precious skeletons.
But her favorite camerawoman and best friend was off filming an episode in Hawaii. The other operators were more than sufficiently skilled, but it was the five-foot-nothing Rikka who could face down the most obnoxious chef and make him whine like a puppy dog who knew it had been naughty.
“Go away, Mickey Spelene.”
“Hey, you’re the one who invited me.”
He did a thing with his eyebrows that even Groucho Marx knew was ridiculous rather than suggestive.
“Lots of hot foods here, Katie.” She hated that nickname.
Mickey, the self-appointed hustler among the eight contestants, tried again to corner her—up against a glass cabinet full of horned skulls. There was no way to tell if people like him wanted to bed her, thought sexual harassment disguised as flirting was the way to winning a competition, or wanted their own show on her network. The last was the most common motive, but her straight fall of black hair, blue eyes, and full figure seemed to bring out the worst in men. There was one in every crowd, and this time Mickey was it.
She was considering if the best riposte would be a right to the jaw or a sharp jab to his solar plexus—either was acceptable as the cameras weren’t rolling yet—when he squeaked in alarm. Alarm that quickly rose to a hiss of pain as someone twisted his arm up behind his back hard enough to escalate him onto his toes to relieve the pressure.
A tall blonde looked over his broad shoulders and offered a thin smile. “Some of them never learn, do they? Your instructions said no meat proteins, so we can’t roast him on a spit. How about if I club him and feed his body to that cave bear up on his hind legs over in the corner?” She matched Kate’s five-ten, but was slender, unusually strong, and magazine-ad beautiful.
Like recognized like. Kate had worked her way up through the Secret Service to leading the Vice President’s Protection Detail—a job that she failed at miserably when his ex-mistress gunned him down outside a DC Jewish deli the day after he was elected. Though exonerated, she’d quit and taken over her parents’ television network. By the blonde’s stance and attitude, it was clear that she was also highly trained.
“That’s not a cave bear,” a brunette woman half a head shorter spoke up from beside the woolly mammoth skeleton that loomed over her. She was so slight that she was almost invisible beside the massive set of bones. “Well, it is, but it shouldn’t be. It should an Arctodus simus; a giant short-faced bear that went extinct approximately twelve thousand years ago. The cave bear, Ursus spelaeus, was only extant in Europe and Asia. We’re in the American Museum of Natural History which should preclude the inclusion of a cave bear. Though A. simus remains have been found in caves so they were also technically cave bears if not genetically. I find this rather confusing but I’m unsure who to contact to rectify this unruly nomenclature as well as have the exhibit corrected.”
She and the blonde traded brief looks over Mickey’s shoulder that the brunette didn’t appear to notice. She continued studying the mammoth as if nothing untoward was occurring mere feet away.
“Catch and release?” The blonde asked with an infinitesimal head-tip toward the grimacing Mickey.
At Kate’s nod, the blonde spun him around, got him walking fast on his tiptoes by leveraging that arm, then let him go with enough momentum to have him stumbling toward the third cooking station where he belonged.
“Emily Beale,” the blonde held out a hand and Kate liked the firm and calloused grasp when she shook it.
“Kate Stark, owner of Cooks Network.”
“US Army major, retired. Claire at the White House was trapped by a short-notice dinner for the Australian Prime Minister and asked me to pinch hit since I was in DC to visit my parents. I dumped my girls on them and caught a ride up; they’re old enough to appreciate the break from me, young enough to not resent my merest existence, and wise enough to take complete advantage the depths to which my mother is willing spoil them. I hope the substitution is okay.”
Kate had looked forward to meeting Claire, had wanted to talk to her about a White House kitchen series, but that would have to wait. If Claire had sent this Emily, then she must have worthy chef skills. The fact that she had a chef’s black-nylon knife satchel slung over her shoulder supported that.
Emily must have noted her hesitancy. “If it makes you feel any better, I cooked in the White House for a while myself a few administrations ago—former First Lady’s personal chef. I’d be glad to get you together with Claire next time you’re in DC.”
They traded smiles and handshakes on the deal.
Kate glanced at the brunette who faced the skeletons. “Are you also here to cook?”
“Cook?” The woman’s glance flickered briefly around the room.
It was as if she hadn’t seen what she was standing in the middle of. The long hall was big enough to hold a hundred or more skeletons. Some no bigger than chickens, but several grand enough to contend with the woolly mammoth in size. The high ceiling, and hemispherical chandeliers gave the animals space to appear more in a natural habitat than this fourth floor of a museum building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
But the crew was rapidly filling the open area around the west entrance with eight cooking stations. Beyond the hall’s entrance, in the foyer for the main staircase and the fourth-floor cafe, a temporary pantry had been set up.
There were to be three rounds of cooking to the competition, cutting half the contestants each time. Eight-to-four, four-to-two, and then one-on-one for the grand prize: ten thousand dollars and two-year membership to the museum.
The museum had closed for the evening and the tourists should have all been chased out while the show-staff had been loading in the kitchen, pantry, cameras, lights, judges’ table, and everything else needed to shoot a one-hour cooking show over the next four hours.
