"A Lost Dream," by Dave Zeltserman, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2026.
This is the second story by Zeltserman to make my page.
Ah, what we have is a breath of fresh noir. The formula of classic noir is the American dream seen through a funhouse mirror: A nobody tries to make something of himself, but his method is connected to a crime and the universe stomps him. But this story takes an interesting twist on the formula.
When the tale starts Dan Sutton is already a successful burglar, but one night he has a dream (an American dream) of the perfect crime. In the morning he can't remember it and he is so upset he tells his girlfriend, who doesn't realize what he does for a living.
To save his relationship, and because no crime is as good as the one he dreamed, he seeks a way to go straight. He succeeds, but as is so often the case in noir, you can change yourself but the hard part is changing your past. A very satisfying tale.
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