Short Story Wednesday Review: Renovated to Death by Michael Bracken and Sandra Murphy

My late wife was a big fan of home improvement and renovation shows. I am pretty sure that the TV just started on HGTV everyday and then waited for me to change the channel. Sandi was very much into the programs. I was not. So not.

 

It did not take me long at all to realize that on every single show, what was supposed to be a simple job, soon escalated into a disaster that would cost thousands to fix. Not just on television either as we knew more than a dozen couples that had gone through to hell and back over a project. I knew that would happen to us. I also knew with our luck; we would find a body in the walls.

 

It would be somebody we knew, had some sort of issue with, and soon we would be the primary suspects. Not Sandi as soon the media would love her just as much as I did. No, it would be her husband. A “known weirdo” according to neighbors who would then go on about how he did not socialize much and kept to himself. Sandi thought I was kidding as I explained what would happen, but I was not at all. I was also sure there would be a body.

 

That is exactly what happened in the short story, Renovated to Death, by Michael Bracken and Sandra Murphy. Instead of being in the walls, the featured story in Black Cat Weekly #198, has the body is vertical in the fireplace. The only good news is the body has not been there long.

 

Constance Harris inherited the house and is working on remodeling it to put the place on the market. She has contractors for the major stuff and to move furniture into the garage, but her and her friend, Tilda Verzon, do demo and other things to save money.

 

As she keeps explaining to Detective Al Coskins and others, she has no idea who the guy is because most of his body is up the chimney. She came in to check on the progress of things, and found him. All she could see was the back of his legs and his work boots. She has no idea who he is or what he was trying to do in the fireplace. Detective Coskins is faced with little information and a lot of suspects as almost every single person for miles around has a key to the place.

 

What follows is a fun cozy style mystery. One I am pretty sure my late wife would have very much enjoyed.

 

The rest of Black Cat Weekly #198 is good too. I have had a subscription since almost the beginning where I was picking up individual issues when it first came out. The only reason you don’t see more about the publication here is because I am so behind on my reading. But, when I saw what this story was about, I had to move it to the top of my reading stack.

 

I’m very sure if Sandi was still here, this house I grew up in and inherited in January 2017 after Mom passed, would look very different. Even those final weeks in the hospital before she was put into hospice and sent home, Sandi was still fighting, and making plans with detailed notes and sketches for the changes she wanted to see in the house. That didn’t happen and won’t now as I am too sick and far too broke to do it. Other than a few minor things like a new fridge and dishwasher, new toilets a few years back, this is the same way it has always been. It is also the only house of the nine on the street, built by Fox & Jacobs back in 1961, the same year I was born, not to have been rehabbed at least once. Most have been fully rehabbed at least twice and some have had it at least five times that I know about. In short, I live in the past, literally and figuratively.

 

Not only do you now know far more than you ever wanted to about me, you also know that the short story, Renovated to Death, by Michael Bracken and Sandra Murphy is a good read. You can pick up the issue at the publisher or at Amazon.

 

 

As noted, I got this material earlier this month through my ongoing subscription.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2025