Satan's Spit, by Gabriel Valjan

 "Satan's Spit," by Gabriel Valjan, in Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024. edited by Heather Graham, Down and Out Books, 2024.

This is the second story by Valjan to make this list.

It is 1934 and in rural Tennessee Sheriff Presser and Deputy Garland are called to a murder in Satan's Spit, the Negro part of town.  The victim is Charlie, a teenage boy, except it turns out that she was a girl.  She used to play harmonica in Mama Raye's juke joint, which is nearby.

Charlie's secret is just the first of many that need to be investigated before the murderer can be uncovered.  For example: who called the police in the first place?

This is a nice historical story with plenty of period and location detail.

The Car Hank Died In, by Mark Troy

 

"The Car Hank Died In," by Mark Troy, in Tales of Music, Murder, and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024, edited by Heather Graham, Down and Out Books, 2024.

This is the second time Mark Troy has made my story-of-the-week blog.

There is a cliche, especially in TV (although I blush to admit it also happened in one of my novels), in which a driver gets into a car and doesn't notice someone hiding in the back seat.  Just once I'd like the driver to open the front door, look back, and ask "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Having gotten that out of the way...

Delaney and Richard are a couple of horny teenagers. They decide the perfect place to fool around is the backseat of an old Cadillac.  Couple of problems with that: 1. The driver is about to take it out for gas.  2. This isn't just any old Caddy; it's the one where Hank Williams took his last breath and is used in parades on holidays, such as the next day.

Oh, there are more problems, some of which involve the car and some concern a cowboy with a gun and bad intentions.  Meanwhile there are two half-naked teens in the backseat, scared out of their tiny minds.  

I did not guess any of the several detours this clever car trip took.

The Bride Case, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

"The Bride Case," by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2024.

This is the ninth time I have chosen Rusch's work for the best of the week.  She's good.  

Last week I said that in short stories science fiction seems to lend itself more to philosophical reflection than mystery.  A week later, here is Rusch coming to make a monkey out of me.

This story kept surprising me, not because of twist endings, but because the shape of it kept shifting.  It starts off conventionally enough:  The narrator - if he had a name I didn't catch it - is an attorney, on his way to an important homicide case, which we read a bit about.  But before that case starts he has time to look in on a client who is trying her first divorce case.  

Then something goes wrong, life-changingly wrong.  And the story shifts.  Later it changes again and we get to what the story is really about, as the narrator has to really think about his relationship with the law.

Violence. Characters in conflict. Philosophy.  All in one fascinating tale.

Midnight Movie, by James Van Pelt

 "Midnight Movie," by James Van Pelt, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2024.

A topic that comes up at least once a year on the Short Mystery Fiction Society list is: What's the difference between Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines? I even wrote an essay on the subject.

Here is one difference: EQMM does not welcome stories that include elements of science fiction, fantasy, or the supernatural -- unless there turns out to be a mundane explanation. AHMM, on the other hand, sometimes lets such tales in, if there is a strong mystery element.

Which brings us to this week's story.  

The narrator runs a theatre.  Someone is murdered during a midnight show, stabbed by someone in the row behind them.  The narrator suspects the killer might be the customer he calls the Creep, who always wears a fedora and dark glasses (during a midnight flick?).  As it turns out the Creep is doing something quite different, and that's where the science fiction element comes in.

I think SF tends toward the philosophical more than mystery fiction.  It has to do with the "what if" element so often built into the genre.  "If X could happen how would that affect Y?" This story will entertain you and make you think. 

Bitter Cold, by Shannon Taft

 

"Bitter Cold," by Shannon Taft, in Notorious in North Texas, edited by Michael Bracken, North Dallas Chapter of Sisters in Crime, 2024.

The big question with historical fiction is: How much is too much? I'm talking about detail. You want the reader to believe you know what you're talking about, but you don't want them thinking they are reading a history book and falling asleep over it.

It may help if you're writing about something the reader knows nothing about, which is certainly the fact in this story - at least with this reader. 

It's January 1918, and the narrator, Major Evans, is the commander of military police at Camp Taliaferro, where American and Canadian pilots are being trained to fight and fly in the World War.  It is one of the coldest winters in Texas history and the troops are not prepared nor equipped for it. That could explain how Canadian Flight Cadet Charlie MacDonald wound up dead in his tent, except there is evidence that he was strangled.

Evans has to investigate the murder quickly while being pressured by the brass to play down a dangerous international incident that could play havoc with the already low morale.  

The story felt very real to me.

Time and Tide by Edd Vick and Manny Frishberg

 

"Time and Tide" by Edd Vick and Manny Frishberg, in Black Cat Weekly, #155. 

After a dozen years of cavorting with dolphins in a bikini at Ocean Planet, I found myself out of work when all the live dolphin shows shut down. Damn PETA.

But our intrepid narrator has a plan to get rich.  She lives on the Treasure Coast of Florida and she is training two dolphins, Scott and Zelda, to hunt for artifacts on the ocean bottom and bring them to her.  Things like gold coins from ancient Spanish shipwrecks.

Clever plan, until a surfer arrives on her favorite beach.  And not just any surfer but a video influencer with an entourage.  Can she get rid of him and his buddies before the King tide comes?

An intriguing story. 

Don't Push Me, by Liza Cody

 "Don't Push Me," by Liza Cody, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024.

 This is the fourth story by Cody to make this page. 

I have said before that dialog is character and so is first person narration.  

I'm unfairly known in my regiment as Basher Belker.  The joke is that I hit first and think later.  I don't care.  Women are outnumbered twenty to one where I work, so it's not a bad nickname to have.  It's certainly better than my other moniker -- Shrimp.

Debby Belker is a squaddy - a British soldier.  She has seen a lot of combat overseas but this story takes place in England and the trouble starts when she sees a man beating a small boy. True enough, she hits first and asks questions after.  Turns out the boy  is a thief, but the man is selling counterfeit goods.  The police have no interest in prosecuting him but Belker takes advantage of a possibility that does not exist in the United  States: She organizes a private prosecution.

Turns out the syndicate the bad guy is working for objects to this.  They have some violent plans for our hero.  But Basher Belker is a long way from a soft target.  A terrific story of an underdog that bites hard.

Home Game, by Craig Faustus Buck

"Home Game," by Craig Faustus Buck, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024.

This is Buck's fourth appearance in this column. 

Sometimes it can be fun to do a mash-up of familiar story types.  We have all read plenty of stories of spouses angered to the point of wanting to kill each other.  And we have encountered many tales of home invasion.  But this is the fonly story I can recall in which the home invader may have  actually been hired to kill a spouse.

And you can understand how these two have gotten on each other's nerves.  Teddy speaks in sports cliches.  "Take the ball and run with it."

Reni, on the other hand, is deep into mindfulness and self-affirmations.  "Fear of failure does not control me." I don't think I would care to listen to either of them for, say, years.

When Stuckey shows up in the middle of the night claiming that he has been hired for a hit it seems plausible.  What follows is a nice suspense tale as plans are revealed and begin to unravel. 

The Art of Cruel Embroidery, by Steven Sheil

 "The Art of Cruel Embroidery," by Steven Sheil, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July 2024.

A historical mystery spread out over decades, and a  classic love triangle.

It starts in Macon, Georgia, in 1948. Woody Wyle is a tailor specializing in the highly decorated clothes favored by country singers.  One day an up-and-comer named Eddie Prospect enters his shop and covets a jacket he can't afford.  So begins a relationship of ebbs and flows, sun and storm,  as Eddie becomes a star and  Woody becomes tailor to the stars.

Woody knows that his looks and personality are never going to make him a sex symbol like Eddie and that's fine until he falls in love with Sammi-Jo.  Inevitably she falls for Eddie, and inevitably, he's a user of women or, as he puts it "not the marrying kind."

What follows is a well-written tale of vengeance, plotted and carried out over decades.   

The Man Who Found The Body, by Avram Davidson

 

"The Man Who Found The Body," by Avram Davidson, in AD 100,: 100 Years of Avram Davidson, Volume 1, Or All The Seas With Oysters Publishing,  2023. 

I usually stick to stories published in the current year, since one of my goals is to compile a list of the annual best, but I have, in my spare time, so to speak, been working through this collection of 100 previously unpublished or uncollected works by Avram Davidson, commemorating his centennial.

Davidson was a brilliant writer, winning prizes in mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.  If you aren't familiar with his work, don't buy this book.  Instead buy The Avram Davidson Treasury and/or The Investigations of Avram Davidson.  Do it now. Treat yourself.  They cover the essential works.

But today's story is a fine one, too. It appeared in Saint Mystery Magazine in 1960.

For the first time in its history the town of Phillipsburgh has had a murder.  The dead woman in the snow was found by Archer Slide, a not-too-bright man who "worked -- when he worked -- as a roofer's helper." Archie is excited about the discovery.  In fact everyone is excited, especially the "excellent specimen of the species Great Red-Faced Police Chief" who is thrilled to have a chance to solve a genuine homicide. 

Everyone gets carried away and pursuit of fame pushes the interests of justice aside.  The press shifts its favor as news is revealed and people who are found innocent of one offense are blamed for another.  

This is not a traditional crime story, but a shrewd look at human nature and how, as Earl Emerson said, murder opens the trunk of people's lives.  I would like to think things would happen differently today, but I'm not so sure.