Shooting for Harvard, by Jeff Soloway

 

"Shooting for Harvard," by Jeff Soloway, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2026.

This is Soloway's second appearance in this column.  

It is not unusual for private eye stories to contain social commentary, going back at least to Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, with its examination of a corrupt mining town.

This is a story about people who have moved to Iowa.  The narrator, nameless as far as I can tell, was a cop but after he got 20 years he retired and followed his ex-wife to her home state to be close to his teenage daughter, Sam.  

He is hired by the Crovens (a great name), a family who moved to Iowa for a different reason: they want their son Stanley to get into Harvard and since that university wants students from every state, Iowa is a better bet than more populated states with more competitive high schools.

Unfortunately someone shot at Stanley and, perhaps accidentally, injured his hand.  The Crovens suspect Billy Haidt, whose family moved to the same Iowa town for the same reason.  These rival families are not charming people.  Here is Billy's mother meeting our hero:

"You innocent. You child. You cop. The game, my friend, is geographic diversity.  Make me some coffee."

The search for truth leads in surprising directions and ends with the best last sentence I've read in quite a while.

Lest We Forget, by Marilyn Todd

 

"Lest We Forget," by Marilyn Todd, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2026.

This is Marilyn Todd's third appearance in this column. 

 Repeating myself: Stories I like best tend to have at least one of four characteristics: great characters, twist ending, heightened language, or great premise.  Todd has come up with a great premise.

We are all familiar with that question: Do you remember where you were when (some event, usually tragic) happened?  And of course, we do.

This story is told entirely in connection to that kind of day.  It begins on 9/11/2001 when Amber, age 12, comes home after hearing the horrible news about the terrorist attack only to find her mother murdered in the kitchen.  It appears to be a botched hostage situation because bank video shows her father emptying their accounts to try to pay a ransom.  His car is eventually found, torched, but he never is.

We see Amber growing up, a traumatized  orphan, in scenes linked to Princess Margaret's death, the Columbia disaster, and so on. We're rooting for her to find stability and happiness, against high odds...

I suspected how this excellent story would end (hey, I read a lot of shorts) but that didn't keep me from enjoying it thoroughly. 

The Texas Chain-Store Manager, by Josh Pachter

"The Texas Chain-Store Manager," by Josh Pachter, in Crimeucopia: A Coterie of Dicks, edited by John Connor, Murderous Ink Press, 2026.

 This is the second story to get reviewed here by my friend  Josh Pachter, not counting the many he has edited in various anthologies. 

Let's start with the title: Bravo.  Don't you wish you had thought of it? 

Helmut Erhard is a semi-retired private eye in a small Texas town, and he has appeared in several of Pachter's previous stories.  In this one he is hired by the manager of a large grocery store. It has just opened and they are alr4eady having trouble with that dreaded retail problem, shrinkage, alias theft.  In this case someone is sticking labels from inexpensive products on costly items, paying the lower price and then returning it for the full price.

Erhard has three days to work in the store fourteen hours a day and figure out what's going on.  This is one of those stories where you see what our hero sees and should be able to figure out what he does (theoretically) , but the trick is how he gathers his evidence. Whether you guess what he's up to or not you will have fun  on the ride.  

Skeleton Crew, by V.G. Burke

 

"Skeleton Crew," by V.G. Burke, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2026.

First stories seldom make this list but Burke's did.  

Our protagonist is a guy named Road, a veteran who saw too much and isn't sure he can live with it.  Or that he wants to.  A fellow vet named Sophie tries to keep him from taking a permanent way out, and Road owes her something.  

In Savannah, Georgia he meets a cop, another veteran, who tells Road that what he needs to keep him going  is a mission.  He finds one in a bar: HAVE YOU SEEN DAVID GRANT? A popular habitue of the joint, a genuine nice guy, has vanished.  And Road may still have the skills to track him.  

The story gets pretty brutal.    If it wasn't in EQMM's Department of First Stories it could have worked in their Black Mask Department.

I wish the story had been more tightly edited.  For example, there were a few spots where I couldn't tell who was speaking.  But it's a very enjoyable tale.   

Half-Empty City, by Jodie Snyder

 "Half-Empty City," by Jodie Snyder, in More Trouble in Tucson, Eva Eldridge, 3Sides2, 2026.

It's nice when we can occasionally escape from murder plots and heist capers.

The narrator of this story, nameless I think, is a survivor of domestic violence, now living in her car.  But that's not an option in Tucson in the summer.  She breaks into a home in a  wealthy neighborhood where almost all the residents have vanished to cooler climes.

So she is a criminal, but one with ethics.  She does not damage the house and steals nothing but food and, technically, electricity. The home gives her the breathing space to find a job and things seem to be looking up but two people are taking an unfortunate amount of interest in her.

One is Hank, the sweet elderly neighbor who assumes she belongs in the house.  The other is a co-worker named Tyler who she recognizes as the same kind of bully she ran away. A guy who won't take no for an answer.

Can she solve these problems?  You will have fun finding out. 

Solstice Sigil, by Laframboise, Michèle.

 "Solstice Sigil," by Michèle. Laframboise,  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2026. 

A lot of good stories in this issue, I must say.  Copy-editing, not so much.

I have read a lot of mysteries set in ancient Rome.  Most of them feature protagonists who have a properly cynical and noirish sentiment about the eternal city but have no doubt that Rome is and deserves to be the ruler of the world.  The best thing about this story is it's refreshing counterpoint to that view.

Our protagonist is a Nubian slave and former gladiator but before that he fought for the army of Carthage. To say he has no love of this city is an understatement.  "Latin was a strange dialect, with the words changing clothes..." he notes.  "Another stupid Roman custom," he grumbles later, and you will agree with him.   

It is Saturnalia, the holiday in which slaves are allowed great liberties.  Our hero (if his name is mentioned, I didn't catch it) has been drinking and gambling when he stumbles over a corpse.  When an army officer sees him near the body he figures he is doomed, but Publius is not a person who jumps to easy conclusions.

Realizing that failure to solve the murder will result in Publius's death (yet another stupid Roman custom) the slave reluctantly decides to help his former enemy out.  The result is a search through Subura, one of the city's nastiest slums.  

Very entertaining.

The Tattle-Tale Heart, by John Leonard Pielmeier

 

"The Tattle-Tale Heart," by John Leonard Pielmeier, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2026. 

Hoo-boy. Sometimes the challenge of reviewing a short story is figuring out what you can say without spoilers. Pardon me if I get vague for readers' protection.

It is 1960 and Eleanor Morse, a widow, has just taken a Caribbean cruise at the recommendation of her friend Harry.  Now back in Altoona she opens her suitcase and finds a horrifying surprise. 

 Which leaves her - and us - with a lot of questions.  Who put it there? How, why, and when?  And, come to think of it, why is Eleanor so reluctant to tell the police about her friend Harry?

The answers are surprising and, in some cases, audacious. And that's all I will say about the plot.

But after I finished the story I found myself trying to reverse engineer the plot. Specifically why did this story need to be a historical? What tied the plot to the past?  

I thought of a few details that probably fit 1960 better than 2026, like the scientific element of the investigation, and Eleanor's determined personality does stand out more in those pre-liberation days. But then I remembered that we are told about an incident in her childhood and, oh yes, that works best with the time period.

I'll shut up now.  Go read the story. It's a good one.

Glass Beach, by Michael Bracken

 

"Glass Beach," by Michael Bracken, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2026.

This is the twelfth appearance in this space by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer.  

One of my favorite mystery stories is "Witch's Money," by John Collier.  In spite of the title it does not involve the supernatural, but tells how a small European village is turned inside out by the arrival of a (relatively) wealthy American. Bracken's story reminds me of Collier's.

The story takes place near Fort Bragg, California in the early 1970s.  The witch's money in this case is a strongbox full of cash, the loot from the robbery of a lumber company payroll a decade earlier. It is discovered in a dump by Patrick, our teenage narrator, and his fairly hostile stepfather Cush.

They hope to keep the find secret but, inevitably, the ripples start to spread, involving first Patrick's best friend, whose mother works at a bank and knows how difficult will be to  make the money safe to spend.  As complications arise and more people get involved our heroes discover just how difficult easy money can be.  

Terrific story. 

Dear Mr. Townsend, by E.A. Aymar

 

 "Dear Mr. Townsend," by E.A. Aymar, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2026.

 This is the second appearance by Aymar in my Best Of column. It's a very quirky story.

First, it is epistolary,  consisting of emails to Hank Townsend from many sources. Second, it keeps shifting between the comic and the tragic.  That can mean failure in a story but Aymar makes it work.

The comic is very comic.  For example, Townsend gets email from his former attorney who is now disbarred and running a business called LegalishAdvice: When it just needs to be plausible. 

But he is also receiving email from a mental health counselor who doesn't seem to be doing him much good, and a company called Patroit Handguns which ends each note with "Shoot your shot!"  And then there are hilarious but scary notes from a customer relations guy who sends him threats.

In other words, Townsend has issues, some of his own making.  He is trying to better his messy situation and you can't help but root for him... 

  

 

Love is Blue, by Lawrence Maddox

 "Love is Blue," by Lawrence Maddox, in in Tennis Noir, edited by John Shepphird, Level Best Books, 2026.

This is my friend Lawrence Maddox's third appearance in this column.  It tells the woeful tale of Marvin Stang a film editor, who has a gambling problem.  Well, as he sees it he has a problem with a bookie, but one thing leads to another, doesn't it?

He is trying to earn some   quick money doing a vanity project for Angelika Blueler, an over-the-hill tennis great, who wants to make a video of her glory days.  But Blue is not easy to get along with.

Two complications pile on: Los Angeles happens to be on fire and Blue wants Marvin's help in dealing with a blackmailer.  Specifically she wants to get at the blackmailer's stash of filthy pictures which happen to be in the part of L.A. which happens to be, did I mention, on fire.

What could possibly go wrong?

You will have a lot of fun finding out.