I am not Fluffy, by Liza Cody

"I Am Not Fluffy," by Liza Cody, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 2013.

There's a lot going on in this one.  It takes a while to piece the story together and understand the way the narrator is telling it.  So, who is she (besides not being Fluffy, I mean)?

I worked as a hostess and greeter at a bar-restaurant six nights a week for five years while Harvey qualified to be a tax lawyer.  And for two nights a week Harvey was going round to Alicia's flat to bounce her bones.  "you were never there," he complained.  "What was I supposed to do all by myself every night?"

What indeed.  Insult to injury: Alicia was an old friend of hers.  And now that Harvey is making a bundle he wants a no-fault divorce and a big white wedding to his new love.

Our narrator goes for textbook passive-aggressive tactics: refusing to sign the divorce papers.  She can't afford a lawyer on her hostess salary so she changes to a less respectable but more remunerative profession.   

And she begins writing her protests against the world around her in chalk on the sidewalk, signing them Fluffy.

Is this a story about a nervous breakdown?  A split personality?  Or is our heroine learning to not be Fluffy anymore, to be a person who can take care of herself?

Damn good work.

Small Kingdoms, by Charlaine Harris

"Small Kingdoms," by Charlaine Harris, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 2013.

On this particular spring Tuesday, Anne Dewitt was thrown off her regular schedule.  Between brushing her teeth and putting on her foundation, she had to kill a man.

Got your attention?  I would think so.  This story has a lovely opening, reminiscent of my favorite start to a Richard Stark Novel: When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.  (Firebreak)

I have never read Ms. Harris before but as I understand it she had made her reputation throwing unlikely worlds together.  Anne DeWitt is, of all things, a high school principal, but as you can guess from her ability to off a bad guy in her bathroom before breakfast, she has a past.  The past not only explains her ease at handling a killer, but also the presence of the killer. 

Besides transporting a dead body she also has to deal with unreasonable demands and criminal behavior by the shcool's star athlete.  Fortunately she finds an unlikely ally.

Was this story a bit of wish-fulfillment?  If every school had a staff member who could handle problems so efficiently,  our academic careers might have been more pleasant.  For the good guys, at least.

Borrowed Time, by Doug Allyn

"Borrowed Time," by Doug Allyn, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2013.

The word "prequel" was apparently coined by Anthony Boucher in the 1950s, but I first heard it twenty years later when someone had the unfortunate idea of making a movie about Butch and Sundance before things started to get messy for them.

Prequels are one of those ideas that tend to sound better than they turn out.  (Cough, cough, Star Wars)  But as always the proof is in the pudding.

This story is a prequel to "Wood Smoke Boys," which made a lot of best-of lists last year, including mine.  "Boys" is about  Dylan LaCrosse, a cop in the north territory of Michigan.  In the present story we learn about the circumstances that caused him to leave the Detroit Police Department and retreat back to his home turf in the north.

And the circumstances involve taking a bullet in the head in the middle of the kind of hellish cop's nightmare in which there can be no good action to take.  LaCrosse survives the injury and is booted out of the force.  Now to survive he has to deal with crooked cops and missing money.

A very satisfactory prequel.  Maybe George Lucas should have hired Doug Allyn.

Hangman's Break, by Albert Tucher

“Hangman’s Break” by Albert Tucher, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2013. 

I have written before about the type of story I call the Unknown Narrator.  That means that all the reader knows about the narrator is what other people say about him/her -- and those people are wrong.  Tucher's story is a variation - the people really do know about the narrator's secrets, but the reader has to slowly figure them out.

The year is 1969 and hero is a police chief who got his job in part because during World War II he fought alongside the son of the local industrialist.  Now that same son is found hanged on a railroad bridge.  Suicide, or something else?  We learn the grim details of his war experience, and then we learn how the after-war yearas have effected our hero.  And some rough semblance of justice is meted out.

Good story.

The Gallows-Bird, by Kevin Mims

"The Gallows-Bird," by Kevin Mims, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2013.

Somebody said there are only 36 plots.  I don't know about that but I do know certain plots show up in mystery fiction with greater or lesser frequency.  Man decides to kill wife.  Criminal gets hoist by own petard. Some of these things show up in every anthology or crime magazine you pick up.

But I am more fascinated by the rarer plot, the one that you could probably fill one volume with if you put all the examples together.  And one of those is what we are seeing today: An established writer and a novice writer conspire to commit a fraud on the public.

I suppose the reason this subject interests writers is obvious.  In effect, it is work chatter, right?  In most examples I have seen the older writer wants to hire the younger as a ghost (See Donald Westlake's The Hook, for instance) but Kevin Mims has taken a different approach in this story.

The older writer is a certified great novelist with tons of prizes and a niggling bit of self-doubt.  His rival says he is over-rated because he is a life-time member of the literary establishment (studied under other top people at Ivy League schools who got him great reviews on his first book, etc.).  So he wants his last novel to be published under the name of the young author, in order to get an honest judgment.

If this were a horror movie you would be yelling at the screen "Don't do it!"  Unfortunately, just like the pretty girl heading down the basement of the haunted house, the young writer won't listen...

The Tricky Business in Mai Chau, by Nathan j. Beyerlein

The Tricky Business in Mai Chau, by Nathan J. Beyerlein, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, June 2013.

This is a very old-fashioned story, and I mean that in a good way.  It takes place in a current setting but it is about a man who solves a crime through shrewd deductions.  Moreso, it is narrated by the detective's companion (in this case, client) who is utterly baffled by the brilliant discoveries.  This is aliteraty tradition dating back to Poe, of course, and the first detective stories.  Which doesn't make it less fun.

Bertrand Stein lives in Hanoi and he's in a panic.  An old college friend has come to visit him and disappeared.   Unable to interest the authorities, who figure she is just off sightseeing, he contacts a local American blogger he knows through the Web.  Nat Burg is the brilliant amateur detective who solves the case with some very clever thinking and knowledge of the local scene. He is clearly being set up as a series character with tons of eccentricities, mysterious past, and an acerbic tongue.  "You asked me to help, not give you a tutorial in basic logic."

I look forward to more adventures of these characters.  I do have to point out that when a writer named Nathan Beyerlein writes about a hero named Nat Burg, the name Mary Sue comes leaping to mind.

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Wine on Ice, by Cheryl Rogers

"Wine on Ice," by Cheryl Rogers, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2013.

Cheryl Rogers runs a vinyard near Perth, Australia and writes excellent mystery stories - she's been featured here before.  Her regular character is a cop, nicknamed Spanners, who makes up in knowledge of engines what she lacks in social graces.  Her rival for success is a botanist-cop who prefers bicycles to cars.  One gets the impression their boss doesn't like either of them very much.

But he needs their help to investigate the death of a wealth wine grower who was apparently drunk at a huge party (although Spanners notes, she was never seen "tired and emotional" in public before, that being a non-libelous newspaper code for bombed).

Interesting characters, witty dialog, satisfactory plot.

Restraint, by Alison Gaylin

"Restraint" by Alison Gaylin, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2013.

Some stories you know right from the beginning will be your favorite of the week - if they can keep up that pace to the end.  Some don't show their true colors until you get to the stunning ending.

But the rarest of all is the story that doesn't reveal itself as the winner until hours after you read it.  By which I mean, I couldn't stop thinking about this one.  Which is not to say Gaylin hasn't given us a good opening.

When the woman who killed Kevin Murphy's daughter walked into Cumberland Farms to pay for her gas, the first thing Kevin noticed about her was the way she crumpled her money.

Got your attention?  I thought it would.  And the ending is no slouch either.  But in between you will slowly learn about what happened to Murphy's daughter -- none of the obvious things that might pop into your head  -- and about the revenge Murphy plans.  Again, that is a long way from obvious.  It is not bloody or particularly violent, but it will shock you.

Powerful stuff.

The Auction, by Christopher Reece.

"The Auction," by Christopher Reece, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January 2013.

I read my EQMMs out of order.  So sue me.

As the editors note, it is always a treat to read a good story written in an unusual format, especially from a new author.  And that is what Mr. Reece provides us with.

The tale relates the history of an unhappy marriage told entirely through the patter of an auctioneer describing the items available at an estate sale.

Those of you familiar with the Inman family  know this room, I'm certain.  Unlike most of the items we've already seen, many of the objects within this room have gained a certain, shall we say, notoriety?  Other things in the collection are valuable because they come from a particular era of history.  These items, why, these items are part of history!  Ladies and gentlemen, you are being granted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase these treasures directly from the estate.  Shall we begin?

I recommend you do.

A Scandal in Bohemia, by Terence Faherty

"A Scandal in Bohemia," by Terence Faherty, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, February 2013.

This is embarassing.  I am in danger of being labeled a Faherty fanboy. 

For the first time since I started these reviews I am featuring the same author two weeks  in a row.  Is it my fault that Terence Faherty has stories in both AH and EQ, and that both are fine?

The title of the story is, no doubt, familiar. This is a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes, which brings me to an old rant.  As I have said before some people use the word pastiche to mean a story about a character written by someone other than the original author.  To me, that is something different (how about "fan fiction?"). 

I argue that to create a pastiche the author has to re-think the original stories in some way, not just add another one to the series.  And a pastiche is not a parody either , which is simply making fun of the original.  To use a popular recent term, a pastiche is a reboot.

Bringing us to Faherty.   He begins by referring to "the recent discovery of the notebooks of Dr. John H. Watson," which allow us to see the rough draft of this famous story, including Watson's editorial notes to himself.  The result is a hilarious fresh look at the "real" story of the famous partnership. 

"And now to work.  Are you willing to break a law or two and perhaps even land yourself in the jug?"
 "In a just cause."
"We're helping a serial defiler of women recover evidence of same from a blackmailing prostitute, so you can work out the justness of our cause at your leisure.  the venture does, however, ensure you an evening out of the house."
"Then I'm your man."

Hilarious.

Dial Country Code 91 +M for Murder, by Stewart Brown

"Dial Country Code 91 +M for Murder," by Stewart Brown, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 2012.

It was a tough choice this week between this story and "Dead Men's Socks,"  by David Hewson in the same issue.  I may have bene influenced by the fact that Hewson's story was in the same category as last week's pick, by S.J. Rozan.  Both were excellent stories about maverick cops in foreign countries who solve problems in spite of their superiors.

Brown's first story is very different, more a bit of humor than a traditional tale.

"Welcome to the Spade Detective Angency.  If your life is in immediate danger, please hang up and call the local authorities.  For English, please stay on the line.  Para el Español, por favor, pulse uno.  Press 2 if you would like to hear about our weekly crime-buster specials..."

Yes, even detective work can be outsourced, with someone dubious results.  The unlikely named Hamish, a proud graduate of the New Dehli School for Detective Studies, "the fourth-highest ranked detective school in all of New Delhi," is on the job, or at least the phone.  His client, Miss Nancy Drew, is suspicious about the mysterious death of her husband...

All very silly.  But we can't be noir every week, can we?

Golden Chance, by S.J. Rozan

"Golden Chance," by S.J. Rozan, in Ellery Queen's Magazine, December 2012.

EQMM's last issue of 2012 opens with something different from my buddy S.J. Rozan  The story is set in a small village in Western China, where Lo Pen-wei, "a disheveled lump of a man," investigates crime for the Public Security Bureau.  He is a shrewd, cheerful, Columbo-type cop, the only one of his fellows who bothered to learn the language when he moved to the territory of the Uighurs.  "Lo conceded that... for official interviews and instructions Mandarin would suffice; but  other conversations -- for example, those he would be most interested in overhearing in the streets -- would not be held in Mandarin."

As the story opens Lo is investigating vandalism of the office of the Housing Commission, which he does in a typically indirect way: by playing a chess-like game with his shopkeeper friend Sadiq.   In the course of the game he learns that the people are upset about government plans that would destroy a local landmark.  He also learns that his friend has three marriage-age daughters and no money for doweries.  Possibly he can solve all the problems with cunning plan.  And if he can get one more corrupt official out of office, so much the better.

Mystery stories tend to flourish in democracy and not do so well in dictatorships where no one has faith in justice being done.  (And there is my bland generalization for the day; glad to have it over with.)  But Rozan has created an interesting character and a believable setting.  Perhaps we will hear more about Mr. Lo.

Good Intentions, by Michael Z. Lewin

"Good Intentions," by Michael Z. Lewin, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,  November 2012.

Last year in this space I reviewed "Who Am I," in which Lewin gave Albert Samson, his Indianapolis private eye an unusual client: a quiet, unremarkable man called LeBron James who was convinced his father was an extraterrestial.

The would-be alien is back, this time calling himself Wolfgang Mozart.  He is still doing good deeds and for his troubles this time he gets stabbed.  Since he is unable to answer questions Samson has to figure out what happened and why. 

Mozart and Samson are sympathetic characters and the story is well-written.  (My favorite line: A nurse named Matty meets Albert's kid the cop.

"And she's YOUR daughter?"  Matty tilted her head.  "Your mother must be very very beautiful."

After Cana, by Terence Faherty

"After Cana," by Terence Faherty, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September/October, 2012.

"You usually go door-to-door bothering people until one of them knocks you in the head."  That is a friend of Owen Keane, explaining his usual style of amateur detective work.  In this story his approach is more armchair-ish, if that's a word, but very satisfactory.

Keane is a troubled guy with a murky past, explored in previous Faherty tales, and when the current story opens he is accompanying a friend to the wedding of a couple he doesn't know.  The minister's familiar sermon on weddings creating a new community gets him thinking about people in his past, but a few days later the new couple is killed on their honeymoon, and that's what really gets him thinking.

Was it, as it appeared to be, a meaningless mugging death, or is something even more sinister going on?  Keane cleverly traces the roots back to an event that happened fifty years ago, and then forward again to the present day.  The story is well-written with nice characterization of the minor players, which help Keane reach the final deduction.  A nice piece of work.

Losing It, by Melodie Johnson Howe

"Losing It," by Melodie Johnson Howe, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, August 2012.

To be honest, I am not a great fan of the subgenre of stories about mousy women being abused, physically or emotionally, by bullying men.  Just not my cup of tea.

But my friend Melodie made me a believer in this one, largely because the story is so twisty it makes a corkscrew look like a knitting needle.

Callie Taylor is the mouse in question, a manicurist.  Mike is the boyfriend, supposedly working on a screenplay, but apparently only working on the groceries Callie brings home on her paycheck.

One night Callie rebels against her life by spending a thousand dollars she can't afford on a shawl.  Mike hates it because it keeps her from looking "normal," the ordinary person he wants her to be.

And then, late one night in a bar, she loses the shawl.  And worse, one of her wealthy customers shows up wearing the shawl - complete with the tears Mike's dog put in it.  How can Callie get it back without losing her job?

That's where I have to stop, so as not to reveal any twists.  Let's just say, whatever you think is going to happen, you're wrong.

But you'll have a very good time being wrong.

The Street Ends At The Cemetery, by Clark Howard

"The Street Ends At The Cemetery," by Clark Howard, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, August 2012.  

I am surprised EQMM didn't use their Black Mask category for this story.  It has all the meaness and violence you could ask for in such a tale.

In classic noir fashion Cory Evans's life is changed forever by an encounter with a woman, although she is not exactly a femme fatale.  Cory is a corrections officer and Billie Sue is the girlfriend of a prisoner.  When Cory sees her standing in the rain outside the prison, waiting for a bus that won't come for an hour, he violates the fraternization rule by giving her a ride.

There's no conspiracy going on here.  Cory wasn't trying to seduce her.  Billie Sue wasn't looking for a guard to cuddle up to.  But things go to hell all the same.  You can say Cory is an innocent victim of circumstance, but as Rex Stout said "No man was ever taken to hell by a woman unless he already had a ticket in his pocket or at least had been fooling around with timetables."

The intriguing thing in this piece is that every character, including the alleged law-enforcers, has a dirty trick up their sleeve, a double-cross in their heart, and a gun or two in their pockets.  Does it end happily?  Look at the title.  What do you think?

Acting On A Tip, by Barbara Arno Modrack

"Acting On A Tip," by Barbara Arno Modrack, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2012.

 I have said before that I am a sucker for stories about the possibility of redemption, whether the protagonist chooses to take it or not.  This is a nice example.

Marty had been a reporter for the Detroit Free Press for decades when the buyouts started.  One day his editor urged him to take the proffered buyout, and the reason clearly had less to do with his age than with the booze Marty was drinking for breakfast. 

When he found himself unemployed and probably unemployable Marty's wife made him the following offer:

They would sell the house and move Up North to the family cottage she had just inherited.  Ryan, their youngest, would complete his senior year in high school there.  Jenny would refresh her nursing license and become the breadwinner.  And if they did all that and Marty quit drinking, they could do it together and Jenny would not leave him.

A few months later Marty is clinging to sobriety by his fingernails when he wakes to a radio report of three murders in the little town where they are living.  Maybe the Free Press would like a reporter on the scene?  Maybe he can drag a scrap of self-worth out of the ruins?

Very satisfactory piece of work.

Five Stars, by Mike Baron

"Five Stars," by Mike Baron, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2012.

I am not surprised that Baron got his start writing comic books.  This is one of the most intensely visual stories I have read in a long time.  Or, to be more specific, the climax is wildly, inventively, visual.

Bill Scald is a restaurant critic (and what a wonderful name for a critic!). Much to his disgust his boss orders him to review a new Italian restaurant that is clearly owned as  a money-laundering site by a mob family.  Scald points out that in this case a bad review could have extremely nasty results.  His editor, blithely uninterested in such niceties as journalistic integrity, tells him to go off and say something nice.

So Scald decides to dine with protection in the form of  his nephew, "a human pit bull with shaved skull, tribal tats, and the flat eyes of a shark.  Dyson's favorite cuisine was buffalo wings, but he...was too stupid to know fear."  And that's when things get lively and, as I have already indicated, visual.  Fun stuff.

His Daughter's Island, by Brendan DuBois

"His Daughter's Island," by Brendan DuBois, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July 2012.

Very nice piece opens the new issue of EQMM.  Zach Ford is a mild-mannered accountant in a small town in Maine.  His beloved daughter goes off to a party at the home of a millionaire and dies.  The millionaire's son is whisked out of the country, far from the possibility of justice.

In some stories the next step would be a whole lot of guns and blood, but Mr. Ford has a different idea.  He studies up on the millionaire, and then he studies the state and local ordinances.  And starts plotting a completely legal vengeance.

DuBois' story reminds me of one of my all-time favorites, "Privilege," by Frederick Forsyth.  Both are about a "little man" who uses lateral thinking to go after a foe who seems to powerful to attack.  Good piece.

Jenny's Ghost, by David Dean

"Jenny's Ghost" by David Dean, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, June 2012.

After I read this story I asked my friend David if there was a crime in it.  He replied: "there is no crime in 'Jenny's Ghost'; only consequences."   But, he noted, there is a mystery.  Having thought about it, I decided there is a crime, of sorts. I'd be interested to know what you thought.

David wrote about the genesis of this story last month at SleuthSayers, but even if he hadn't I would have suspected it started with the location.

Picture the setting: you are in an airport, stuck in that endless half-life between flights and suddenly you spot something that can't possibly be there: a woman who died a decade before.  Hell of a set-up, isn't it?

David noted that this is a story about consequences.  Not surprisingly it is also about guilt, and the chance of redemption.  These are subjects for fiction I am very much drawn to.  (Hey, my CD is called Can I Blame You?)  David's stories often have a strong spiritual component.  (One of his recurring characters is a priest.)  As I said, there is a possibility of redemption at the end of this story.  Airports can seem like hell, but you don't have to stay in one forever.