Minus one

In Competition No. 2951 you were invited to remove a letter from a well-known book title and submit an extract from the new work. This challenge, prompted by the hash tag #RemoveALetterSpoilABook that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter, saw you at your best. Among many highlights in a large and inventive entry were Robert Schechter’s A Cockwork Orange, which featured Donald Trump’s manhood, and a turn by Ted Hughes in Katie Mallett’s Far from the Madding Crow. Other star performers were Mike Morrison, John Samson, Peter Bear, Toni Hinckley, Frank Upton and J.M. Wilson. Sadly there was room for just the six winners printed below, who take £25 each. Hugh King nets £30.

In the chilly dawn, Seth Fluck limped past the glowering hulk of Ely Cathedral, down to the stinking mud and knife-cruel reeds beside the river. Mist hung over the water like foul breath greying a mirror. There were six plump rats already in the traps — simmered in vinegar they’d make a fine dinner for Gargoyle, his staffie cross.
 
There were wretchedly few eels nowadays. The sole victim of his illicit night-lines was a slimy, writhing tench. Was it rage or hunger that made him sink his jagged, blackened molars through its leathery scales and into the rank, bone-pricked flesh?
 
True fenmen can stalk and throttle a heron. Seth did so now, punished by its hideous scream and jet of fish-stench excrement splattering his moleskin breeches. Still, broiled heron was what it took to calm down Queenie when, as today, the madness was upon her — that or widgeon giblets mashed with turnip.
Hugh King/Bleak Ouse
 
Her first two deliveries went harmlessly past off stump. He grinned, bat raised aloft, holding her gaze with his, suggestive, challenging, as if to say, ‘I’ll show milady how we deal with t’fancy upper-class leg spin ’ere in Nottinghamshire, and a lot more besides…’ Sure enough, he caressed the third ball with the faintest of feathery glances, for four.