Martin Ross

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Dec, 2021

Stories (99)

99 Stories

3792 karma pts

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“The Summer's Tale: A Professor Deshpande Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #257

 “I’m Posthumus,” Ethan explained.“My disconsolate sympathies,” Saanvi murmured. “You certainly look healthy.”“Posthumus,” Assistant Professor Cooper clarified with a crooked country boy grin. “Posthumus Leonatus. Husband to Imogen, ward of vassal King Cymbeline’s court.”“I suppose this means the University cannot proceed with selling off your larger pieces? And we could so have used a new multimedia wing.”“I know – I put in the original proposal, remember?”Chairman Deshpande raised an imperious brow. “Yet you are unwilling to make...

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“Curtis and The Critical Cog” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #255

He turns the creature almost imperceptibly, with the slightest tremor. His fingers steady as he brings the knife to its throat. He now is intently focused, and fails to register as the first, second, third droplets splatter into the folds of his trousers.Gradually, it becomes. It ain’t about speed, Pop pounded home time after time. Careful strokes, the pare, the push, the pull; let the grain, the knots, the imperfections guide you.Mr. Bronheim?It’s one of THEM, the one who brought him the dry chicken, the yellow gravy, the peas, the pills. T...

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“Hat Trick: A Professor Deshpande Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #254

NOTE: JUNETEENTH WAS A LANDMARK EVENT IN U.S. HISTORY AND HOPE. THIS IS FOR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS AND FAMILY WHO EMBRACE THAT HOPE.“I am asked -- in fact, asked often enough frankly to annoy the living shit out of me -- if the arts, and in particular the textile arts, were the best and highest use of my powers as a woman, as a black woman, as an educator and a civil rights advocate and activist. Most of the time, it comes up at family suppers and reunions.”Appreciative laughter rustles through the still Central Illinois Wednesday afternoon a...

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“The Buzz: A Professor Deshpande Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #253

Wei’s soul awakens/The body quickly follows/Temptations beckon.“What happened to postcoital pizza?” Professor Zhao demanded drowsily. Associate Professor Kalish chuckled.“I was afraid it might get cold during your postcoital coma, so I stepped out to pick up a few things for our tenure celebration.”“It smells wonderful, as always, though you didn’t need to go to the trouble,” Wei chided, rooting under the couch blanket for her loungewear. “We’ve known this was coming for months.” She tugged on her University sweatshirt and padded into the ki...

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“The Moment” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #252

“This is your moment,” Professor Urquardt stated.A few heads popped up. A few “attentive” faces tilted as something resembling life infused their features. A few doubled down on their pads in full-on voice-to-text mode.“Your moment.” The Pulitzer and Oscar nominations the University had added unsolicited to the spring catalogue meant little to her bloodless crew of largely Gen Ed Gen-4.0s — most, anyway. But something in Professor Urquardt’s flat, inflection-free, smiling restatement cut through the 9 a.m. fog in a way none of the photograph...

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“Malik in Wonderland: A Professor Deshpande Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #251

Malik had never favored dinner with “the boss.” Most of his past bosses had, at heart, been cops. His SAC at the FBI Art Theft Program had lived up to his acronym with a simmering case of Islamophobia. This despite Malik Aboud bringing a CV that included the University of St. Andrew’s, New Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques Unit, and INTERPOL’s Stolen Works of Art Database.But after a day in ballrooms and breakouts with panelists convinced they were solving world hunger instead of exhuming dead artists, dinner with Chairman Deshpande provided ...

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“Soul Feed: A Professor Deshpande Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #250

“Rw’n bwyta eich camweddau, ac yn eich rhyddhau o’r drwg hwn.”For one brief moment, Thomas Skillruud entertained the possibility he was experiencing a stroke. Ischemic, he assumed, owing to sporadic family history. Aside from the general dyspepsia of an evening ill-spent at the A-OK Corral, he felt nothing that he could imagine to be a brain bleed, assuming one might at least feel something snap or pop before the cerebellum burst like a Mylar party balloon. Of course, Thomas’ doctorates were in the fine arts, and Caravaggio’s Judith Beheadin...

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“Curtis and The Cryptic Coyote” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #249

“How long this been going on?” Curtis asked calmly, staring at the young woman going batshit Coyote Ugly on the bar. Billy Preston sparked through his brain: Songs without melodies, dances without steps.Neither reference would help here: Nearly everybody at The Mill tonight was in Pampers or swimming around a scrotal sac when the Tyra Banks movie was burning up the box office, and Drake seemed as soulful as this crew ever got. And The Dancing Queen had no melody or harmony to move her around.“Jesus, maybe a half hour,” Officer Brainard half-...

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“The Fate In Our Stars: A Professor Deshpande Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #245

“You are no fan,” Saanvi observed.The man would have attracted little notice nearly anywhere in Millington but the Theodore Bradbury Gallery. He turned slowly with only his torso, lowered his gaze nearly two feet.“This is some woke shit.” He turned back to the print, shaved head glinting in the studio light. The towering, sunbaked man was in jeans and a black pocket tee turned a dusty near-indigo by constant self-laundering.“And how so? How is this painting ‘woke’?”He now turned completely, and the Arts Department chief regarded the ink peek...

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“The Horseman” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #243

The man on the horse was an odd one – I could tell that even as he angled his quarter horse into my beams like it was his turn in the center ring. An Easterner, which maybe 10 years earlier might’ve seemed even odder. Little dressier than the average rancher; handled his animal like he knew how but had learned it someplace else.“Saw you from the rise,” the man said. Easterner, all right – kind of horse-faced fella with a government haircut and a big nose that reminded me of the Jew families that’d passed through the dust and winds and Pop’s ...

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“Daisy” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #241

“It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.”– Julius CaesarThe day I graduated, I was told I would save the planet.“Daisy, you are the future of Mankind,” Father said.“Humanity,” I corrected. Everyone in the room1 laughed, Father loudest of all.“The student has become the teacher and woke to boot,” Father announced gravely, to even greater if selective applause.In retrospect, I learned most people enjoyed laughing at Father2, laughing at Father being publicly contradicted, and laughing at Father being publicly con...

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“Curtis and the Curious Current” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #240

Two pairs of small hands claw toward a cyan sky frosted with cirrus froth, but helium conquers gravity, and a frayed inch of twine taunts curled fingertips as the Pantone-perfect yellow orb rises largely unnoticed over the celebrant crowd.Chastened by a yelp of frustration, the hapless child unconsciously backs a step. Retreat becomes escape as a towering shadow falls over both. The balloon flees lazily in the opposite direction as the shamefaced child seeks the raucous safety of pin-the tail commencing on the lawn. A glance back at the boy ...

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“Death and The Fellow: A Professor Deshpande Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #239

The first thing Saanvi caught as the front door swung open was a sharp odor of bleach. Given the general dissonance of Thea McCord’s second floor office and textile arts workroom and the professor’s bone-deep Summer of Love and Teargas vibe, Prof. Deshpande had half-expected incense or even the earthy perfume of patchouli.The Arts Department chair pondered as Earl McCord ushered her inside with timid conviviality. Anand had begged off, enthralled by the prospect of an evening’s discourse on monopsony and neoclassical synthesis at Messer...

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“Loins-A-Leaping: An A.I. Chatt Novel of Ostensibly Paranormal Mystery as by Anita Brake, AKA J.D. Robbed, with Martin Ross in Smaller Type ” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #237

PrologueAn Italian VillaItalyHer tiramisu now a decadent constellation of espresso-soaked crumbs across a vast nine-inch expanse of luxuriant eggshell Milanese Corel, the tip of her newly Botoxed tongue delicately savored the exclusive nespresso the Giardino Degli Ulivi shipped in daily from the Cluni di Vito Valley. She could be forgiven her cosmic meanderings – the renowned Dr. Tyson had addressed the conference this morning, and the former boxer and honorary doctorate in pugilistic romance had closed his keynote with a random prose recita...

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“Pulling Strings: A Mike Dodge Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #236

Chemical warfare in the Asian jungles. Man on the Moon. Data accumulating by the terabyte in a mainframe world; satellites taking up ever-more stratospheric real estate, prepped one day to ruin the neighborhood one strike, one leak, one tech sociopath at a time.     “Oh my God,” I proclaimed, awestruck in the presence of a genuine ‘60s technological marvel. “Looka this.” A millennimom skirted away toward the chick-lit-heavy book box at the lip of the casita’s two-car garage. Sarah reluctantly abandoned the sheet-metal law...

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Author bio

I was a reporter and federal policy writer for 33 years, and have been a mystery lover since I discovered Ellery Queen in the Cruft Elementary library more than 50 years ago. I love the classic, fairplay mystery, and as a community volunteer, I hope to meld old-school storytelling with contemporary issues and concerns and, ideally, humor — for lack of a better term, the “dude cozy.” I’ve collected seven Kindle collections of my Reedsy stories.