Zuda March: Night at the Western

California, winter, the late 1980s: lost on their way to bigger things in Los Angeles, a small-time conman and a thief reluctantly stop over for the night at the run-down Western Motel, in the agricultural hinterland. What should be just a short rest on their way to the big city becomes a wrong turn toward death itself. It is a detour one of them will not survive, and the other will never forget. Nick, the greedy conman, is drawn into what seems like an easy $10,000 scheme by Laura, the pretty night manager of the motel. He figures one quick score on the way to Los Angeles won’t hurt. Our nameless narrator, tired of a thieving life and hoping this will be his last job, follows reluctantly along. As the tension comes to a boiling point, the pair find themselves dragged into a plot that neither of them understands, unwitting players in a high-stakes game with opponents far more desperate than they. Nothing at the Western Motel is as it seems. Before sunrise, more than one person will be dead, and the lives of everyone will be turned upside down by a collision of lust, greed, jealousy and desperation. The plot twists, and twists again. With a full cast of honorable thieves, desperate criminals, disturbed relatives, and a femme fatale whose depths nobody understands, Night at the Western is a crime tale that pays homage to noir classics such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Detour and Blood Simple.

The art on this story I didn’t like – not to say it was bad, maybe my eye is lazy, but I didn’t feel drawn to this as much as I felt I should be.
The story seems passable, but is hard work. I think that it is over narrated (if there is such a thing) which takes away from the potential flow of the story.
This story does have potential, but I think that it work too slow to be a contender in this months competition.
2 Stars