Tha Last Laugh

They had it coming. They just didn't know the universe had been keeping score.  A con artist who has spent eleven years selling rigged lottery numbers to trusting townsfolk finds a winning ticket on the pavement — and can't understand why claiming the jackpot leads directly to a police interview room. A ruthless food critic who destroys restaurants with her scathing reviews wakes up as a fly. A card cheat with genuine talent finally plays a game without his equipment, against a quiet opponent who appears to know every card in every hand. A lawyer who has built a twenty-six-year career exploiting gaps in the law receives a summons from a court he cannot find in any legal directory, citing a statute he cannot locate in any database.  In The Last Laugh: Volume One, Ruth Ashford Vane offers twelve darkly comic stories in the tradition of The Twilight Zone, in which the arrogant, the fraudulent, the cruel, and the corrupt receive exactly the comeuppance their actions have earned — delivered with the precise, unhurried timing of a universe that has been paying attention all along.  These are not simple punishment stories. The universe in these pages is not wrathful. It is patient, specific, and possessed of a very dry sense of humour. Its corrections are fitted to the crime with a craftsmanship that would be admirable if it weren't so uncomfortable for the people on the receiving end.  The last laugh is always the best laugh. Especially when you didn't see it coming.  For fans of The Twilight Zone, Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, and darkly satisfying short fiction. The first volume in an ongoing series. Can be read independently.