Armchair Fiction presents large, deluxe editions of classic mystery-crime novels. Veteran crime novelist Milton K. Ozaki tells a powerful tale of deception and murder in “The Dummy Murder Case.” It was a mock murder that led to total mayhem:
Actors…check.
Fake gun…check.
A mannequin donning an old dress dropped into the university lake…check.
Those were the last things on Bendy Brinks’ list needed to make Professor Caldwell’s Psychology II course on perceptual responses a roaring success. The idea was to have a boy and girl act out a grisly scene of mock murder, and then have the class discuss their individual perceptions of the performance. Unfortunately, fate had a different plan when the cops fished a real corpse out of the lake in lieu of the old mannequin. With a real murder case dredged up from the lake’s depth, Bendy Brinks finds himself going from simple professor’s assistant to unwilling detective. Before he knows it, he’s chasing up leads for Professor Caldwell and Lieutenant Phelan to scrutinize over, as the odd case reveals far more questions than answers.
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