Cal Brink Series
Crime Fiction Short Stories
Some Cal Brink Files are too long for the newsletter. Too short for a novella or novel.
Amazon Short Stories
Charlie Had a Dinosaur
Cal Brink wasn't looking to be a private investigator. For most, a robbery attempt is traumatic. For Cal, it was a job interview.
A witness with a gun stepped out of the shadows and made Cal a job offer.
For fifty bucks, Cal took the offer and walked into an apartment he hadn't been invited to.
A little boy's momma was happy with Cal's decision. Shawna, his new bride, had other ideas.
Charlie Had a Dinosaur is a Twenty-Minute Thriller and the origin story of Cal Brink — a man who didn't choose the life. The life chose him.
Short Stories on Substack
Free. And you are welcome to subscribe.
Twenty-minute reads that let you learn who Cal Brink is, where he came from and what it costs him to get involved.
In 2010, Cal Brink had spent his life learning to read people, properties, and situations that others walk away from. As a Kansas City real estate agent specializing in distressed properties, he knew that every house had a history. He never expected one of them to have his.
When a sledgehammer revealed a silver box hidden inside a basement wall, Cal's carefully rebuilt life began to unravel in ways that connected a 2010 closing table to a surveillance job he did in Washington, DC, more than twenty years earlier.
Notice of Assignment, the first Cal Brink thriller, arrives this fall.
Notice of Assignment
Coming This Fall
Not every story needs a fistfight.
© 2026 Chris Writes, LLC - All Rights Reserved
© 2026 Chris Writes, LLC - All Rights Reserved
A Chris Writes Publication