Showing results by author "Wilbur Daniel Steele" in All Categories

This gripping anthology gathers classic American short fiction where deception is an art, truth is perilous, and crime often wears a human smile. From a real-life axe murder on a lonely New England island to calculated impostures, whispered rumors, political terror, and crimes born of obsession, these stories explore the dangerous motives that surface when masks begin to slip.

Alone on an offshore lighthouse known as the Seven Brothers, a young assistant keeper recounts the events that destroyed his life—and his certainty of what is real. Raised in strict innocence and untested by the world, he arrives at the light expecting solitude, routine, and honest work. What he finds instead is confinement: the ceaseless pounding of the sea, the narrow rituals of duty, and a household sealed off from time and society. In that isolation, attention sharpens. Silence grows heavy. Ordinary glances begin to feel charged.

When a seemingly abandoned schooner drifts into port with no crew aboard, seasoned seamen whisper of another “mystery of the sea.” Everything on the vessel appears orderly—sails set, dishes washed, papers missing—save for one detail: a silent yellow cat moving freely through the empty ship. As Stewart McCord, a practical and experienced engineer, takes command of the vessel for its return voyage, unease begins to creep in. A missing sailor. Strange sounds in the night. Shadows that don’t behave as they should. And always the cat—watching, listening, appearing where no living thing should be.

Written with stark realism and psychological depth, A Devil of a Fellow is a powerful portrait of masculinity, desire, and accountability in early-20th-century coastal New England—where charm can wound as deeply as cruelty, and redemption comes at a price.