The Right Size of Favor, by Joseph S. Walker

 

"The Right Size of Favor," by Joseph S. Walker, in Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2025.

This is the fourteenth story by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer to be reviewed here.  The nearest competitor has twelve.

Hard Line Graham is a legendary private eye of the classical tough guy school.  Unfortunately, he's not the op handling this case.  Instead we have:

"My name is Josh Branson. I'm a seventh-grade English teacher, and I'm married to Hard Line Graham's daughter.  I didn't get a summer school assignment, and Hard Line doesn't like people sitting around, so he told me I'm working for him.  He sent me here because he owes somebody a big enough favor to help Brenda Roman, but not a big enough one to show up himself.  I have precious little idea what I'm doing and I'm frankly terrified."

The Brenda Roman mentioned above is the firm's client, the county coordinator for Hands Across America, a campaign to raise money for charity.  (All the stories in this book are tied to some actual event from the 1980s.)

Someone is demanding a share of the money raised for charity: a protection racket.  Our teacher-turned-P.I. has no trouble finding the gangsters but they may not be so easy to deal with: "Christ, this guy's huge. He looks like he bullies offensive linemen for their lunch money." 

That's good writing, sharp and funny.  You'll find a lot more like it before Josh finds a solution in this delightful story.

Hiding in Plain Sight, by Tom Larsen

 "Hiding in Plain Sight," by Tom Larsen, in Black Cat Weekly, 193.

Most of Larsen's stories are set in Ecuador. Some feature a cop but this is from his other series about private eye Wilson Salinas.  

Our hero explains that a big part of his job is hunting down gringos who have come to Ecuador to hide from governments or other agencies.  

All my clients wanted from me was a location where they could find the subject of their search. "We'll take it from here," was the common response when I located someone.  I had a standard disclaimer that I gave all my clients stating that if they were after someone to beat them down or kill them, I wouldn't help. I doubt if any of them even read it. 

Now he's looking for John McIntyre who ran a jazz club in New Orleans that laundered money for the mob.  Finding him is easy; surviving an encounter with the man's bodyguard is harder.  But then it turns out that nothing about the case is as it appears.

A twisty and satisfactory tale.

You Know What You Did, by Karen Harrington

"You Know What You Did," by Karen Harrington, in Trouble in Texas, edited by Michael Bracken, North Dallas Chapter of Sisters in Crime, 2025.

This is the third story by Harrington to make my list.  By coincidence it is her third story about Dr. Kellog. I say coincidence because this is the first time those two groups have overlapped, if you follow me.

Serena's daughter has been kidnapped.  At least, that's how Serena sees it.  Reasonable people may disagree.   (Is Ava a minor or has she turned eighteen? The story is ambiguous, as far as I can tell.)  

What is clear is that Ava has been collected by the insufferable parents of her boyfriend who won't allow Serena any contact with her.

So Serena goes to the aforementioned Dr. Kellog who runs a Remedy Clinic.  His solutions are, shall we say, not mainstream (and non-violent, by the way).

I won't reveal any more about this charming tale except to say, while it's not a particularly funny story, one line made me laugh out loud.

Above Suspicion, by Victoria Weisfeld

 

"Above Suspicion," by Victoria Weisfeld, in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, #26, 2025.

This is a caper story, inspired by an actual crime.  (And, interestingly enough, the second mystery I have read based on that crime.)

We watch Amit Madoor carefully recruiting a couple of unlikely accomplices for a crime.  Why does he want to hire two young surgeons?  What characteristics do surgeons have that would make them good candidates?  And what is he offering them a million dollars each to do? No violence, he promises; just one simple felony.

I won't spoil the story by revealing the secrets.  But it is a satisfying read.

  

The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea, by David Spencer

 "The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea," by David Spencer, in Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Song of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter, Level Best Books, 2025.

Last week John Floyd wrote an excellent piece at SleuthSayers about some plotting tricks.  One was plot reversal: "Everyone talks about twist endings, but this kind of thing is effective anywhere in the storyline."

Indeed it can be, and in this story, it is

Teaser is a master thief and he has scuba dived to a private island to steal an ancient Japanese artifact.  His backup team, Pran and Gadge, are following him on radio.  In a story like this the reader usually contemplates one question: Will the gang triumph or will things fall apart at the last moment?

But in this case, halfway through the story: plot reversal.  And suddenly the action is quite different and so are the stakes.  It makes sense and holds together beautifully.  I would do a disservice if I said more.  But the writing sparkles and the dialog is as good as the plot.

The Former Detective, by Jamil Jan Kochai

 

"The Former Detective," by Jamil Jan Kochai, in Sacramento Noir, edited by John Freeman, Akashic Press, 2025.

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book.

It is an occasional complaint of mine that the editors and authors of this series forget that noir requires a crime, not just depressing events.  Some stories in the current volume suffer from condition, but this is  not one of them.

Zakariya was a cop in Afghanistan but now he and his wife are refugees living in an immigrant community in Southport.  As the story begins he smells blood and traces it to a field where two strangers are burying the corpse of an Afghan teenager.  Given his situation, this is not a crime Zakariya dares to get involved in, certainly not by investigating.

But it turns out that he is only one degree of separation from the family of the victim. And so we follow his conversations with the people who don't know what he knows about the situation.

A gloomy story with an interesting ending.  

Being Alive, by Brian Cox

 "Being Alive," by Brian Cox, in Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Song of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter, Level Best Books, 2025.

 This is the second story I have reviewed here by Cox. 

There are many classic story premises in our field.  Spouse wants to kill spouse (one editor said that is the plot she sees submitted the most often). The cop haunted by one specific case. The thief forced or persuaded to commit One Last Job (more common in action movies than print, I think.)  The private eye trying to help an old friend.

And the retired spy whose past has caught up.  That's the one we face today.

Jones left the Company after an operation went disastrously wrong.  Now he spends his time fishing in a rural community.  But things change when he gets a box of fishing gear from his old supervisor.

Then an old colleague arrives with news about that botched mission and the fact that that former supervisor recently died in an accident.  Jones' past is catching up fast...

A nicely suspenseful story that took me by surprise.

Cast, in Order of Reappearance, by Simon Brett

"Cast, in Order of Reappearance," by Simon Brett, in Playing Dead, edited by Martin Edwards, Severn House, 2025.

 This book is in honor of Simon Brett, a festschrift to get fancy, so it is nice that his own contribution stood out.  This is his second appearance on this blog, by the way. 

Brett's most famous character is Charles Paris, a not very successful actor (the story features a few painful one-line reviews of his work from newspaper critics). And then there is his hobby: "His amateur investigations had been a sequence of wrong trees barked up and wrong suspects accused."

Now he is starting a tour with a dreadful whodunit.  He plays "The Suspect Whose Work As A Doctor Gave Him Access To The Medication An Overdose Of Which Caused The First Murder Victom To Die."  I hope that isn't how he was listed in the program. 

And speaking of murder, there is a lot of bad blood in the acting company and things seem to be getting worse...

But the story remains a treat.

The Luncheon, by Christopher Fowler

 

"The Luncheon," by Christopher Fowler, in Playing Dead, edited by Martin Edwards, Severn House, 2025.

Something the English do better than us Yanks: portrayals of oh-so-sophisticated folks being oh-so-genteelly nasty to each other.

Amanda and Madeline are meeting for lunch for the first time in three years.  The obvious question is why are they meeting at all since they obviously despise each other. 

 Madeline owns a cosmetics company.  She fired Amanda who sued for wrongful dismissal and won a lot of money and used it to start her own company.  Madeline, in fine twisted form, says that means "I was able to give you the opportunity to get started."

Amanda is plotting revenge.  Madeline has a counter-strategy.  I won't go into detail here but it is a treat to watch these two masters sparring.  

Come Forth and Be Glad in the Sun, by Mat Coward

"Come Forth and Be Glad in the Sun," by Mat Coward, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2025. 

This is the tenth story I have reviewed by Mat Coward and, good grief, the second this month.

What should the opening sentence of a short story do?  The only thing it must do is make you want to read the second sentence.

But it can do so much more.  For instance: 

* It can set the mood.

* It can tell you something about the plot.

* It can introduce one or more characters.

Now try out this for an opening gambit:

"Of all the people we have ever kidnapped, you are by far the rudest."

* Mood: Farce.

* Plot: Kidnapping.

* Character: At least two serial kidnappers, one of them grumpy.  At least one victim, apparently rude.

Did it make you want to keep reading?  It sure did for me.

Gemma and Nathan, sister and brother, are the victims.  They refer to their captors as Nice and Snitty Nappers. (Snitty, of course, is the one who complains about their manners.) We learn a lot about their personalities.  Nathan is the genius who never found anything to do with his life. Gemma is the grouchy businesswoman who runs an escape room business.

And as for the Nappers, they explain that they are "permanent security consultants" but their boss is getting old and it "had been ages since they'd last been required to consult anyone concerning their security and their baseball bats and steel-capped boots were growing old with neglect." 

This is a delightful tale with some wild plot turns.
    

The Scarlatti Skip, by Richard Helms

"The Scarlatti Skip," by Richard Helms, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025.

 This is the twelfth story by Helms to reach this blog.

Private eye Eamon Gold does a lot of skip tracing for bail bonders but this assignment is more preventative: Keep an eye on the Fiddle Killer and make sure she doesn't run. So why is Veronica Scarlatti called the Fiddle Killer? 

"'Darren Wojohowski was learning to play,' Doogie said.  'According to the police reports, his progress was slow. His girlfriend Veronica became irritated and emptied her revolver into the violin. Tragically it was tucked under Darren's chin at the time.'"

Some of us may be inclined to sympathize.  But Veronica, an attractive young woman, knows she is looking at "twenty years in a box."  She swears she just wants to spend the last few days in unsupervised peace, but Eamon is being paid to keep her under supervision. 

You will not be surprised to know she makes a run for it.  Things get complicated.  Then they get worse.  A very enjoyable story.