The Canadian: Death by the Barrel, by J.F. Benedetto

"The Canadian: Death by the Barrel," by J.F. Benedetto, in Black Cat Weekly, #226, 2025. 

This is the second story in this series to make my Best Of pile.

It is a neat historical tale full of, but not overwhelmed by, details of place and people.

It is 1901 and in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion a dozen western powers control Tientsin, China. Our hero is a former Canadian Mounted Police officer, also a veteran of the war.  He happens to be near by when a Dutch sea captain is found drowned i n a barrel of his own beer in his rooms in the British quarter.  

The Englishman investigating the crime is an old enemy who would love to blame it on the Canadian so he has to get to the bottom of things more complicated than the bottom of a beer barrel.  It turns out that the sea captain is anything but an innocent sailor and the story makes some clever twists and turns.

Never Bet Against Death, by J.F. Benedetto

"Never Bet Against Death," by J.F. Benedetto, in Crimeucopia: A Load of Balls, edited by John Connor, Murderous Ink Press, 2025.

We are in Tien-Tsin, China in 1901. The Boxer Rebellion has failed and Europeans and Americans have the run of the place. One of those Americans is Hezekiah Sauer, ex-cowboy, retired Marine, now a traveling man. 

An Englishman, a baronet no less, invites Sauer to watch a game of Ts'uchu or cuju, a ball game played by - gasp - women. The game is interrupted by the murder of a Russian consul and the Russian army officers who arrive to investigate enlist Sauer's aid.

This story is an excellent example of the historical mystery, providing plenty of interesting historical detail without drowning you in it.  As a bonus, there is a perfectly logical way of disposing of a murder weapon that I have never come across before.