There’s something for everyone in the 22 short stories collected in the anthology Low Down Dirty Vote: Volume 3.

Edgar-nominated David Corbett starts us off with his An Incident at the Cultural Frontier, where we’re hit with a squad of hard-eyed men in battle-rattle who pull up across from the polling place to intimidate a blue crowd. Best-selling Faye Snowden’s The Obsession of Abel Tangier gives us an inside look at a school board meeting where the issue on the ballot is whether to whitewash the history taught to students. Do you like your crime with a touch of the past? Take a trip back to Chicago when a politician’s “lifestyle exceeded his salary,” in insider David Hagerty’s Slain Pol or follow the tribulations of a Serb ambassador in the time of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the versatile author Katharina Gerlach’s Violent Choices. Then fast forward to the future in high-tech Ember Randall’s How To (Actually) Change the World where you’ll meet Alex Hunter, the first artificial intelligence candidate for president.

If the animal kingdom is your comfort-zone reading, we offer Ann Parker’s Winning by a Whisker: A Paw-litical Tale. (I could say Tail, but it wouldn’t do to edit this multi-award-winning author.) Not wanting to neglect dogs, we have Barb Goffman’s (dozens of nominations and awards fill her bio) For Bailey, where a crucial vote on a town’s fireworks displays uncover crimes worse than scaring a 16-year-old’s pet Newfoundland.

From sheriffs, capos, and rats of the humankind, to con men and ordinary voters, here are some of the other colorful characters who populate this anthology:

Joey Cucuzza Loses His Election by Thomas Pluck
Joey Cucuzza didn’t want to shoot the guy, but he didn’t get to vote on it.

C.O.D. by Gabriel Valjan
He appeared before them, a man to fear, a man in black. When he walked, one heard a soft sound, a clink, though there were no spurs and no horse. The crowd parted before him because death clung to him.

Buff Versus Green by DJ Tyrer
“I am not ashamed of my body,” proclaimed Anna Wetherby. “Indeed, I am proud of my body.” She gave it a provocative jiggle that caused a stir through the meeting hall that more usually was host to school sport.

Green is Good by Stephen Buehler
It doesn’t happen often, hell, maybe every five years, but four con men sat around a table in a greasy diner telling tales about the grifting life.

Vote Early by Camille Minichino
Emma sat upright in her crib, steeling herself to face another day as a baby. She hated that label, but an article she’d read recently indicated that a person was considered a baby until her first birthday. Ten months to go.

The Chinatown Honorary Mayor Caper by Patricia E. Canterbury
My name is Tanner Sullivan. I was born in the Northern California town of Weed, the great-grandson of the largest landowner in the county, Liam Sullivan.

Nostalgia by James McCrone
“It’s what your brother would want you to do, isn’t it?” the Special Agent in Charge said to me. And I knew I’d go, and I’d go for the head.

Kane’s Theory by Bev Vincent
“The only ‘CRT’ I know about is a cathode ray tube,” Hector said. My brother Nate gave him a blank look. “You know, like the picture tubes in old TVs.”

Power at All Costs by Travis Richardson
How did you get here? That is a question you’ve been asking yourself nonstop for the past year and a half as your finger hovers over the button. A comically red button with disastrous consequences.

Other stories take us from prisoners to victims and more from a stellar collection of authors:

Riviera Red by Sarah M. Chen

The Wounded Revolutionary by Misty Sol

The Last Sound You Hear by Miguel Alfonso Ramos

Arabella by Anshritha

Threats and Bribes by Jackie Ross Flaum

Pick A Color by Eric Beetner

Author, editor, and publisher Mysti Berry has worked hard to schedule a release date of May 15, 2022, through Berry Content Corporation. All profits will be donated to Democracy Docket, to defend the voting rights of all Americans.

Purchase Link

About the Author
Camille Minichino is a retired physicist turned writer. When her first book, on nuclear waste management, wasn’t very popular, she turned to cozy mystery novels and has published 28 of them in 5 different series with Penguin-Random House and others. She’s also written many short stories and articles. She teaches science at Golden Gate U. in San Francisco and writing workshops around the SF Bay Area. More at minichino.com.

All comments are welcomed.