If someone wrote this in a novel, no one would believe it ...

Amusement A title to conjure with....

Hello from New Zealand

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I have a retentive memory for peculiar stories from real life, but quite often have to clean them up, or at least make them more logical when adapting them to fit into my novels. This happened with my WIP, which features a homicidal art gallery owner, who effectively stole the business by killing his brother and walling him up in their dead father's funeral director business.

I based this on a real-life incident, in which a son decided to decorate his mother's stairwell, and fit a Stannah stairlift, while his mum was in hospital. Puzzled at how narrow the half-landing seemed to be, he hacked away at the plasterboard of a false wall, to provide enough room for the stairlift to be installed. Sitting on a chair behind the wall was the desiccated body of an elderly woman...she'd air-dried into a mummy. It turned out to be his mum's lodger, from 20 years ago, who'd rented a room from her after his mum was widowed. An autopsy proved she'd died of a heart attack. His mum had hidden the corpse, to go on claiming her lodger's benefits. His mum, who was very frail, was charged with preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body. Punished with a small fine, she died shortly afterwards.

Her son had great problems selling her house!

As Iain M. Banks said:

“The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't."
 
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I have a retentive memory for peculiar stories from real life, but quite often have to clean them up, or at least make them more logical when adapting them to fit into my novels. This happened with my WIP, which features a homicidal art gallery owner, who effectively stole the business by killing his brother and walling him up in their dead father's funeral director business.

I based this on a real-life incident, in which a son decided to decorate his mother's stairwell, and fit a Stannah stairlift, while his mum was in hospital. Puzzled at how narrow the half-landing seemed to be, he hacked away at the plasterboard of a false wall, to provide enough room for the stairlift to be installed. Sitting on a chair behind the wall was the desiccated body of an elderly woman...she'd air-dried into a mummy. It turned out to be his mum's lodger, from 20 years ago, who'd rented a room from her after his mum was widowed. An autopsy proved she'd died of a heart attack. His mum had hidden the corpse, to go on claiming her lodger's benefits. His mum, who was very frail, was charged with preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body. Punished with a small fine, she died shortly afterwards.

Her son had great problems selling her house!

As Iain M. Banks said:

“The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't."
We found a Napoleon era sword blade in our basement and thought that was quite exotic. Meanwhile, across the river, they had the builders in. Banging away at the wall they found an entire Napoleonic soldier - fully dressed and armed - walled up. He'd been... duh, duh, duuuuhhh... murdered. :eek:
 
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Amusement A title to conjure with....

Hello from New Zealand

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