Unemployment Benefits [Kindle Edition]

Bob Frey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

He Says Murder He Says

For Walter Milton, one of the benefits of unemployment is to have the apartment he shares with his wife all to himself so he can sit around and think. And what does he think of? Why murder, of course. He wonders if it would be possible to kill somebody in broad daylight and get away with it. He even goes as far to pick a spot, plan an escape route, and buy a Saturday night special. Comes the fateful day, and does he actually shoot someone or undergo a schizophrenic episode and simply fantasize it? He doesn’t know, and it will be up to you to decide. Is Unemployment Benefits a psychological study of a psychopath or simply a story of a highly imaginative individual with too much time on his hands?

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 43 KB
• Publisher: Van Fleet Books (January 12, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004J170AO
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #725,636 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Bob was born and raised in a blue-collar neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A street kid, he spent several summers on his own with his good friend, Jimmy Malloy, in beach towns in New Jersey where they worked as dishwashers and countermen, panhandled the boardwalk, and slept in the Caterpillar, an amusement park ride, in between jobs.
On graduation from high school where he played football, Bob again took off with a couple of friends, one a gigolo, and the other a pool hustler, and bummed around for a couple of years in New York City and New Jersey Beach resorts. He returned to Philadelphia and worked for a spell in a shipyard before he joined the U.S. Navy in order to avoid the draft.
In the navy, he was trained to be an electronics technician and one of his jobs was flight deck troubleshooter for a fighter squadron on the U. S. Midway. Always a rebel, he was court marshaled for direct disobedience of orders while on the Midway, busted to the rank of airman, and given fourteen days hard labor. He did get to see a lot of Europe, however, as well as Cuba and Haiti. and was honorably discharged.
After military service, hoping to become an actor, Bob was accepted into the Drama Department of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on the G.I. Bill of Rights. He was kicked out for being a bad one, however, after his sophomore year. Nevertheless, he did fall in love while there and was married shortly after. He finished his schooling by attending classes at Columbia University in New York City during the day and loading trucks by night to support himself and his family and graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing.
Using the knowledge of electronics he had learned in the navy, Bob's first writing job was turning out technical manuals for electronic equipment. From there, he parlayed this experience to become a promotional writer for a medical company in Columbus, Ohio, and eventually a copywriter for a couple of advertising agencies in Los Angeles and received several awards for his creative work.
While in L.A., Bob returned to his first love, acting, as a side career and was good enough to appear in more than forty independent films and stage plays. His favorite roles were heavies, such as mafia hit men, eccentrics, serial killers, and other edgy characters. He originated the role of Daddy, a flippant ghost, in the stage comedy, Hazing the Monkey. Bob is now retired and lives in the great Northwest with his wife, Susan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting plot, but confusing storyline, January 31, 2011

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Horror movie buff (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Unemployment Benefits (Kindle Edition)

I bought this due to the subject matter, and I wanted to see how the author was going to flesh out the story. Overall it was an interesting storyline. The product description is pretty much spot on. I don't want to mention anything that might be considered a spoiler, so I'm not going to describe any details. But I will say that some of the actions in the book confused me. For example, in the beginning of the book the protagonist is doing a certain action, and shortly afterward he is wondering what it would be like to do that action. It could be that the story, if read in a device other than the Kindle for PC, would reveal different formatting. But when I read the story all of the formatting was the same. A few times this made it difficult to tell if the main character was actually doing an action or just thinking about it, at least until a follow-up action clarified whether the event really happened. I guess if the thoughts had been italicized and the actions had not, that would have cleared up my confusion.

I did like the story and hope to see more from the author.