Shanks

---

Leopold Longshanks (“Call me Shanks. Everybody does.”) is a character who appears in the short stories of Rob Lopresti.

Shanks is a mystery writer. He will admit, with a certain resentment, to being in his early fifties. He’s famous in his field, but fortune has not followed as briskly as he thinks it should.

He is married to Cora, whom he loves dearly. Cora has recently started writing romance novels and is perhaps more successful than Shanks, which doesn’t bother him at all. Really. Really.

Shanks occasionally finds himself involved in solving crimes, which irritates him. (No surprise there; Cora says everything irritates him.) He loathes the possibility of becoming famous as “a mystery writer who sleuths in real life!” so he dodges opportunities whenever possible.

So far all of Shanks’ stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. More are on their way.

See the bibliography for a list of the Shanks stories.

Click here to return to Rob Lopresti's home page