Specimen & Other Stories

A six-pack sampler of short fiction by Alan Annand: humor, crime and WW2 adventure. Bananarama: Reformed meat-eater embarks on a 15-day bananas-and-orange-juice diet, with surprising side effects. The Date Square Killer: Mild-mannered hit man finds love, social justice and the meaning of life in non-random acts of murder. River Girl: Middle-aged bureaucrat takes a detour on his morning jog that leads him to an unexpected rendezvous with Fate. Specimen: A wealthy butterfly collector visits his twin brother, warden of a penal colony, who is building his own unique collection. The Bassman Cometh: My night with Margaret Atwood: Hapless university graduate student in 1975 ruins famous Canadian author's poetry reading. The Naskapi & the U-Boat: A German U-Boat in WW2 visits northern Quebec to install a weather station, but a native family compromises their secret mission.

ALAN ANNAND is a writer of crime fiction, offering an intriguing blend of mystery, suspense, thriller and occult genres. When he's not dreaming up ingenious ways to kill people and thrill readers, he occasionally finds therapy in writing humor, short stories and faux book reviews.
Before becoming a full-time writer and astrologer, he worked as a technical writer for the railway industry, a corporate writer for private and public sectors, a human resources manager and an underground surveyor.
Currently, he divides his time between writing in the AM, astrology in the PM, and meditation on the OM. For those who care, he's an Aries with a dash of Scorpio.
ALAN ANNAND:
- Writer of mystery suspense novels, and astrology books
- Astrologer/palmist, trained in Western/Vedic astrology.
- Amateur musician, agent provocateur and infomaniac.
Websites:
- Writing: www.sextile.com
- Astrology: www.navamsa.com
Fiction available at online retailers:
- Al-Quebeca (police procedural mystery thriller)
- Antenna Syndrome (hard-boiled sci-fi mystery thriller)
- Felonious Monk (New Age Noir mystery thriller #2)
- Harm's Way (hard-boiled mystery thriller)
- Hide in Plain Sight (psychological mystery suspense)
- Scorpio Rising (New Age Noir mystery thriller #1)
- Soma County (New Age Noir mystery thriller #3)
- Specimen and Other Stories (short fiction)
Non-fiction available at online retailers:
- The Draconic Bowl (western astrology reference)
- Kala Sarpa (Vedic astrology reference)
- Mutual Reception (western astrology reference)
- Parivartana Yoga (Vedic astrology reference)
- Stellar Astrology Vol.1 (essays in Vedic astrology)
- Stellar Astrology Vol.2 (essays in Vedic astrology)
Education:
- BA, English Lit
- BSc, Math & Physics
- Diploma, British Faculty of Astrological Studies
- Diploma, American College of Vedic Astrology