You are left wondering who the stranger was. He reads about a grisly triple murder, one that sounds like it involves the people he was with before he met the stranger. It ends with the man on a plane on his way home. The end is the point where the reader is left to make an interpretation of their own. We are astounded to find out how the whole thing was a set-up to place the pieces for Lucifer’s fall. We want to know who killed the angel and why. It is a story that holds the protagonist captive as well as the reader. He tells him a tale of angels, a murder and the set up of the pieces that will create the present day universe. In payment for the cigarette the stranger offers to tell the man a story. The man takes a late night walk and ends up sharing a cigarette with a stranger. You are waiting for the moment when what you think is happening is going to be twisted around to reveal something out of the ordinary. But, as in many of Gaiman’s stories, there is this, “hold your breath,” waiting period. There is little indication that anything bizarre is going to occur. One of my favorite stories was “Murder Mysteries.” The story begins innocently enough with a man stuck in Los Angles when storms in England prevent him from flying home. His stories make you look deeper then the surface. You wonder what their true motivation may be and if they are hiding something from the reader. You begin to second guess everything you read and every character you meet. His stories make you think twice about what you are reading. The most obvious explanation is not generally the truth. His collection of short stories “Smoke and Mirrors,” highlights this idea well.Īs the title states the theme that runs through these stories is that reality can be and often is warped around us.

He lets the reader interpret the story and decide what the characters decisions could ultimately mean.

This is one of the reasons I like his stories so much. He doesn’t write stories where every reader is going to take the same thing away. He doesn’t write stories where it is easy to pick out the lesson or main idea. Neil Gaiman has a somewhat dark and twisted way of looking at the world.

Murder mysteries neil gaiman explained