"Three Billy Goats Gruff," by Michael Bracken, in Wish Upon a Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales, edited by Michael Bracken, and Stacy Woodson, Level Best Books, 2026.
Michael Bracken, friend and fellow SleuthSayer, as well as co-editor
of this book, sent me a free copy. And what do you know? His story is
the best I have read so far in the book. It also marks his thirteenth appearance in this blog.
One of the big trends in popular fiction these days is retellings of mythology. Someone should do an anthology of that, don't you think? While we wait for that one we have this volume based on fairy tales. Some are grim (Grimm?). This one, not so much.
Three brothers, Buck, Billy, and Kid Gruff, run a disreputable marijuana dispensary. When a virus starts destroying their crops they hope to negotiate a deal with their long-time rivals, the Troll family. But only the patriarch of that family can make such arrangements and to reach him the Gruffs have to cross a Troll (or toll) bridge. Lot of puns here, naturally...
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