Plot summary
Told from the viewpoint of a bandleader during Prohibition, the story centers around a small-time racketeer, Mike Scollay, who hires the narrator's jazz band to play at the wedding of his 300-pound sister, Maureen, and her 90-pound fiancé. At the gig, Scollay's enemy, the Greek, blackmails a man to come to the wedding reception and insult Maureen in front of the guests. Shortly after, Mike is shot down in a hail of gunfire from the Greek's men.
The band leader is approached a short time later in a bar by Maureen, who is despondent and depressed, feeling that she caused her brother's death and is filled with self-loathing over her weight and the way she is aware other people perceiving her. After requesting a song, she leaves, and the narrator never sees her again, but he, like everyone else in the country, follows her story from that point on. Now Maureen Romano, she takes over her brother's racket, with her husband as her lieutenant, and carves out a criminal empire that ironically far eclipses the operations of both her brother and the Greek, whom she soon hunts down and takes a gruesome revenge on. Eventually, she dies of a heart attack and her husband, who does not share her leadership abilities, is later sent to prison. The narrator sadly reflects on the cruel rumors that she had ballooned up even further in weight by that point, something he considers to just be malicious rumors.
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The Listerdale Mystery is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by William Collins and Sons in June 1934. The book retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6). The collection did not appear in the US; however, all of the stories contained within it did appear in other collections only published there.
Red Hot Riding Hood is an animated cartoon short subject, directed by Tex Avery and released with the movie Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case on May 8, 1943, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1994, it was voted number 7 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field, making it the highest ranked MGM cartoon on the list. It is one of Avery's most popular cartoons, inspiring several of his own "sequel" shorts as well as influencing other cartoons and feature films for years afterward.
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Virginia Eliza Poe was the wife of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The couple were first cousins and publicly married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27. Biographers disagree as to the nature of the couple's relationship. Though their marriage was loving, some biographers suggest they viewed one another more like a brother and sister. In January 1842, she contracted tuberculosis, growing worse for five years until she died of the disease at the age of 24 in the family's cottage, at that time outside New York City.
"Sorry, Right Number" is a teleplay written by author Stephen King for an episode of the horror anthology series Tales from the Darkside. It is the ninth episode of the fourth season. It was later included in King's 1993 short story collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes, and is the only such work that King has included in any of his anthologies. It appears in script format, and begins with an authors' guide for screenplays and abbreviations.
L. T.'s Theory of Pets is a horror short story by American writer Stephen King. It was originally published in the 1997 limited-edition collection Six Stories. In 2001, it was released as an audiobook with the recording of King reading the story live at Royal Festival Hall in London. In 2002, it was collected in King's collection Everything's Eventual.
Karen Rose Smith is an American author born in Pennsylvania. Her first romance was published in 1992; her 97th novel, a mystery, will be published in 2017. It is the sixth in her eight book Caprice De Luca Home Staging mystery series. Her Daisy's Tea Garden mystery series will begin in 2018. She has written for Meteor/Kismet, Kensington, Silhouette and Harlequin. She has also indie-published novels and short story collections in e-book format. Twice a winner of New Jersey's Golden Leaf Award in Short Contemporary Romance, she has also been honored with CRA's Award Of Excellence for short contemporary, as well as the Golden Quill for Traditional Romance. Her romances have made the USA TODAY list and Amazon's romance bestseller list. Her mystery, Staged To Death, climbed to #1 on Amazon's cozy mystery bestseller list. Married, she spends her days writing, gardening, cooking and keeping her four rescued cats company.
The Biggest Loser: Couples 2 is the seventh season of the NBC reality television series The Biggest Loser. The season premiered on January 6, 2009, with 11 overweight couples competing for a cash prize of $250,000. Alison Sweeney is featured as the host, with trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels. Helen Phillips won the competition with a total weight loss percentage of 54.47%.
According to books by Tyson Blue, Stephen J. Spignesi, and Rocky Wood et al., there are numerous unpublished works by Stephen King that have come to light throughout King's career. These allegedly include novels and short stories, most of which remain unfinished. Most are stored among Stephen King's papers in the special collections of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, some of which are freely accessible to the library's visitors. However, others require King's permission to read. Additionally, there are a number of uncollected short stories, published throughout King's long career in various anthologies and periodicals, that have never been published in a King collection.
Dahlia is a fictional character from The Southern Vampire Mysteries/Sookie Stackhouse Series by author Charlaine Harris. However, she only appears briefly in the novels and the only time she appears on the same page as Sookie Stackhouse is in All Together Dead. Dahlia is the main character in a computer game and in a growing number of non-Sookie-related—though set in the same fictional universe—short stories.
She is a vampire and lives in the city of Rhodes, Iowa.
