ANY OTHER NAME: short stories

In Any Other Name it is 1962 and the world is on the brink of nuclear war. For 13 days in October what became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis raged in Cuba, the United States and Russia and the story begins when a 21 year-old ex-marine, working for the CIA, becomes involved in the operations. The young ex-marine was there when DEF CON 2, one step before all-out nuclear war, was activated and he saw history made from a much different angle than anyone else and this, then, is his story.
The Terror is told in the 1st person and the subject—the writer's friend—known only as the Russian, is a study in contradictions. He owns a car dealership and always has a roll of hundred-dollar bills with him whenever he shows up and he always treats his friends to whatever they want, so when another side of the man totally inconsistent with this image occurs the friend, a writer, sets out to write it down before it's too late and so begins his story; which is to tell the Russian’s story while he still can.
Hav-a-Heart is a mystery-thriller that deals with the harsh, economic realities of today's changing work-place and how it affects people's personal lives. The story is set in Tampa, one of the hardest hit areas in the country in housing and the enormous amount of occupations that depended on a good housing market. It questions not only why and how the housing crisis happened but the very system of Capitalism that not only caused it but continues to this very day to threaten another, much worse, crisis.
These, then, are the first three stories in another book of short stories by author Keith G. Laufenberg and will be joined with a dozen others, all of which will stay on your mind long after you've put the book back on the shelf.