"The Walkout," by Kevin Egan, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2026.
Last year I mentioned being surprised that I was reviewing a Kevin Egan story for the first time, since I had enjoyed many of his tales. That's just how things go sometimes. Now I have to be surprised that this is the first time I reviewed one of his stories about Foxx, troubleshooter for the New York City judicial system. When a judge goes hinky or a clerk disappears, Foxx is the guy who tries to make the problem disappear, quietly if possible.
But before we get into that let's get a little bit meta. By definition a mystery story has a crime in it. But what is a crime? An action which might be legal in one time and place might be forbidden in a different one. And sometimes something that sure as hell seems like it should be a crime is perfectly legit.
I was thinking about this because I just finished reading The Zorg, by Siddharth Kara, a nonfiction book about one horrifying event that was part of the long chain that led to the elimination of slavery in the British empire. Things turned on one question: when, if ever, is it murder to throw enslaved people overboard to drown?
Which is not the subject of this story, but certainly it is reasonable to ask which parts of Egan's tale are criminal.
Foxx's problem this time is his boss, Major Edward Kearney, the senior officer in the main courthouse, and I do mean senior. He is in his eighties and people have been pushing him to retire for decades, but he refuses to leave his office - in either sense of the word.
Complicating things is that the major has no valid birth certificate, making it hard to get his pension. This leads to Foxx being sent to Ireland and the tiny village where Kearney was born.
People familiar with a certain aspect of Irish history may guess part of what's coming (and I have never before read a short story on this subject). But I absolutely did not see where this fascinating tale was going to end.
