Hi is for Heist, Hero and...

H is for Heist, Hero and The Hanging Rock

Many a mystery story starts off with a heist of some sort. A heist is not necessarily a bank robbery, though it could be. A heist is something stolen but usually, or most often, seems to involve a carefully contrived and elaborately drawn out plan.

Art thefts, huge jewelry thefts, come to mind first. International intrigue, some complex foot work by the criminals, even if they aren't brilliant, world class thieves, the plan is usually carefully detailed and involves more than one perpetrator, scaling walls, entrance into locked and wired rooms, highly sophisticated equipment and means of reaching and retrieving the desired object to the heist might even have the reader, observer rooting for the villain while he extracts the treasure and escapes.

Sometimes a heist is a vigilante-style stealing of someone's right to life. In the flash fiction rendering of "The Hanging Rock" is such a heist. But that is a stretch of the word, unless of course you're a mystery writer—then nothing is a stretch if you can prove it in the end.

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