"Hours on the Phone," by Gregory Fallis, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2025.
This is the fourth story by Fallis to make my column, and the third about these characters.
Clayton Ellicott is a lawyer at a nonprofit who helps artists. Hockney is a private eye who sometimes works for him.
Ellicott's client this time is Melly, a successful web comics artist who is, well, a little eccentric. Actually, a lot eccentric. Basically a hermit. She lives in the house she grew up in and only four people are allowed to visit her.
Someone is sending her harassing email. Hockney to Ellicott: "I don't know how to tell you this, but almost every woman who's ever gone online gets harassed like that."
But this is different. Weird and it seems like the harasser knows her. And only four people know Melly...
This is a different and convincing story. I believed in Melly in all her pain and frustration. Nice work.
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