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.