Ace High

ACE HIGH - Two Stories each with its own look at death and life from author Ken Byers - In Final Notice, a widow’s late husband loses their retirement money in a scam that bilks thousands of retirees out of their peace of mind. After her husband dies, Marcella Packer is left alone to figure out her life. She manages until the day the bank’s Final Notice darkens her mail box. She is to be evicted and left to a life on the streets. She organizes what little is left and prepares to end her life. On her final walk around town, on her way to disappear into the ocean forever, fate steps in and delivers a whole new plan. In the longer story, a rugged and battle-scarred ex-GI, full name Daniel Thomas Spader, or Dan T to his friends, and Ace to those who know the story of his intimate tattoo, roams the streets of Island City looking for a killer. In Ace, the characters Dan T meets on his search have all had miraculous escapes from death, many in the recently concluded World War II. Versions of the story become so common and echo his own, that Dan T sees a new mystery with far greater implications. Add the disturbing sense of having done it all before, and Dan T’s search becomes an existential journey in search of transcendence while answers to traditional questions fade into the prevailing mist of Island City. As a bonus at the end of Ace please find the first chapter of Ken Byers’s book Laughland. Thanks for reading.