Sugar, by Michael Bracken

"Sugar," by Michael Bracken, Crime Syndicate, Issue 2, 2016.

I would say any writer who appears in this space twice in a year can think he's having a good year.  That's not ego on my part; I would be happy if any non-relative thought I scored twice in one spin around the sun.

Mr. Bracken is making his second appearance at Little Big Crimes this month.

This story is about Samuel "Sugar" Cane, a Texas thug who has worked, since he was a crooked high school football player, for a crime boss named De La Rosa.  As he goes about his daily work of collecting debts for the big man he meets a woman whose mother used to be his lover.  Hmm..

A popular topic in writing circles is first person versus third.  This story would be much less powerful if it were in first, or if we could tell what'd going on in Sugar's head.  We ave to figure it out, which keeps the suspense high.

This story reminds me of Michael Koryta's "A People Person," which I wrote about here back in 2013.  Both are about a thorough-going baddie who finds himself unexpectedly facing a line he may not be willing to cross.

And both are terrific stories.

"Restoration" by Art Taylor.

"Restoration" by Art Taylor, in Crime Syndicate, 1, 2016.

My fellow SleuthSayer Art Taylor scores in the first issue of this new mystery fiction magazine, although a purist might say this one is more science fiction than mystery.  Actually, it's both.

The narrator is a salesman, trying to convince a family to buy a restoration service.  You see, they take a DNA sample and occasional brain scans, and then, if heaven forbid, you should die violently, they can whip up a clone of you in under a month, and family bliss is restored.  Only violent deaths; the ethicists forbid interfering with natural exits.  But, you know, there is so much violence these days.

The wife is all for it.  The husband (and from the salesman's point of view, they have and need no other identities) is extremely dubious.  Can our hero close the sale?

Here is our salesman explaining his work:


Discretion was key.  And indirection.  Euphemisms helped.  You didn't talk about death at all, didn't even use the word, much less talk explicitly about the man who was shot in the eye while walking to lunch, or the woman who was tortured for hours before she was killed, or the children who...

No.  Let the prospective clients put it together on their own.

I thought I saw where this story was going and I was totally wrong, which pleased me greatly. 

A Battlefield Reunion, by Brendan DuBois

"A Battlefield Reunion," by Brendan DuBois, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, June 2016.

The June issue of AHMM is awfully good, making it hard for me to pick winners. That's a better problem than the occasional weeks when I can't find a story I enjoy, so I won't complain.
 
This marks DuBois' sixth appearance in this space, tying him with Terence Faherty for first place.

It's 1946 in Boston.  Billy Sullivan is a private eye with a guilty conscience because, as an Army MP, he spent most of the war out of harm's way, while his brother died in the infantry.

His client, Ronny Silver, is also having trouble with dealing with his war memories.  But he recently spotted someone he knew from his time in Europe, a war correspondent who had promised to send the G.I.s photos.  Ronny thinks if he can get those pictures he won't forget his buddies who died.  Can  Sullivan help him find the reporter?

If you have read any private eye fiction it won't be a spoiler if I tell you there is more going on than what appears on the surface.  Interesting twists, interesting characters...

Chase Your Dreams, by Michael Bracken

"Chase Your Dreams," by Michael Bracken, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, June 2016.

A very touching story by this year's winner of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for lifetime achievement in the mystery short story.

Picture a small town in Texas, one so set in its ways that the whites and blacks still use seperate cemeteries.  Cody is a gay man, deep in the closet.  His secret lover, Chase, on the other hand, was "leading one-man Gay Pride parades."

When Chase disappears, Cody has to decide what is more important: finding out the truth, or staying safe?

"Nobody's filed a missing person report," Junior said. "Not sure anybody around here cares one way or the other."

"I could file a report."

Junior lowered his ice cream-laden spoon and stared straight into my eyes.  "You might could," he said, "but are you sure you want to do that, Cody?  People will talk."

Shrink Rap, by Craig Faustus Buck

"Shrink Rap," by Craig Faustus Buck, in Pulp Modern, 10, 2016.

One thing that has always bugged me (trust me, there are others) is what I call the "different-with-me fallacy."  A typical example would be: "Sure, my lover cheated on her husband, but this is different.  She won't cheat on me because I am/we have something special."  Like Oscar Wilde said about second marriages, it is the triumph of imagination over experience.

On the other hand, you might say that Talia, in this story, suffers from a lack of that fallacy.  She used to have a lot of mental and addictive problems, but her wonderful psychologist cured her.  And became her lover.

But he would never violate his professional ethics and their relationship by seducing another patient because... Uh, because...

If she suspects him of misbehaving is she suffering from paranoia, or merely pattern recognition?

Good story.

Creampuff, by Rob Hart.

"Creampuff," by Rob Hart, in Unloaded, edited by Eric Beetner, Down and Out Books, 2016.

Clever concept for an anthology: crime stories without guns.  Profits will go to States United to Prevent Gun Violence.

As for Mr. Hart, making his second appearance in this space, while his story features a violent crime, it feels more mainstream than genre.  It's a sort of character study or slice-of-life (slice-of-death?) piece about the titular character.

The big man they call Creampuff has a job that could only exist in a city as big and crazy as New York.  He is a bouncer in a bakery.  You see, the chef has come up with a baked treat so popular that people line up before opening to buy one, and they are all gone before nine A.M.  And since they are so trendy, a whole of Important People feel they should be able to cut in line to get theirs.

Creampuff disagrees.  And he can make it stick because "[h]e was huge, like a recurring childhood nightmare."

Here is our hero at work:

There were the Richie Riches who would stride up to him and wave a bill under his nose.  Usually a twenty, sometimes a hundred.  Creampuff would take it, stick it in a pouch on his belt that read "donations for charity," and cross his arms. 

No one ever asked for their money back.

An enjoyable and well-written piece.

The Ballad of Maggie Carson, by Cheryl Rogers.

"The Ballad of Maggie Carson," by Cheryl Rogers, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine,  May 2016.

This is Australian Cheryl Rogers's third appearance in this space.  And what a treat it is.  Here's the opening.

David's lifeless body sits ramrod straight in the passenger seat.

The recently widowed Maggie Carson is gunning a camper van along a red slash of outback corrugations. Anthills dot the spinifex.  They flit along the hazy edge of her peripheral vision like tombstones.  

So who is Maggie and what is she doing rushing through the Never Never at full speed with this peculiar traveling companion?  And did I mention that a retired police officer may be chasing after her?

She is a very cheerful senior citizen, very glad to be free of her miserable husband.  "This woman is in the driver's seat.  She prides herself on being a glass-half-full kind of gal.  Someone who makes the best of the curved balls life tends to pitch."

All she has to do is find a place to dump David.  And then there are a few other complications...

This story reminds me of one of my favorites from last year, Margaret Maron's "We On The Train!"  They both race along with a breathless energy that conceals what is actually going on.  (But Rogers' story is far more manic.)  Highly recommended.

The Miracle on Christmas Eve, by Szu-Yen Lin

"The Miracle on Christmas Eve," by Szu-Yen Lin, in Alfred HItchcock's Mystery Magazine, May 2016.

I am not a big fan of locked room stories.  I think I only have only reviewed one here before.  But I liked this one a lot.

Szu-Yen Lin is Taiwanese and his hero Ruoping Lin is as well.  Unfortunately neither the editor's  introduction nor the story itself tell us anything about him except that he will be moderating a panel at a book fair and that he is not surprised when a stranger knocks on the door of his office with a problem.

Oh, I should add that for that panel he is  reading a mystery novel by an author "who specializes in mysteries without crimes," and that of course is called foreshadowing.

Getting back to the knock on the door, the knocker is a grown man named Ko who wants Ruoping to tell him whether Santa Claus really exists.

It's not quite as crazy as it sounds.  When Ko was young his father, a widower, made sure a present from Santa was waiting for him every Christmas morning.  When his schoolmates scorned his belief the father invited them all over on Christmas Eve to be convinced.

And proceeds to reveal a dozen presents inside a locked room, sealed with tape on door and window, after he and the boys slept on the floor outside all night.

The work of Santa or a clever and dedicated parent?  I am sure you can guess but the solution is quite satisfactory.

The Last Blue Glass, by B.K. Stevens

"The Last Blue Glass," by B.K. Stevens, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, April 2016.

My fellow SleuthSayer B.K. Stevens has come up with a nice one.  I could say it is the life and death of a marriage as told through a set of blue glasses, and that's true, but I am afraid it makes it sound artsy and experimental. It isn't.

Cathy and Frank buy the set of six blue glasses as they are preparing for their first dinner party.  They are a bit fragile and expensive but Frank loves them and Cathy tends to go along with what he wants, which turns out to be part of the problem. 

The best part of this story is how the personalities of the characters are perfectly illustrated.  The salesmen talk like salesmen, the brother is clearly a petulant jerk, and so on.  Take this scene from that dinner party, when Cathy's mother-in-law has just knocked over the first blue glass, causing it to smash on the floor:

"I don't know why you bought such flimsy things," his mother said, not glancing down.  She salted her potatoes, her chicken, her broccoli, everything on her plate before tasting everything.

What a peach, huh? 

I did not guess where the ending was headed, but glancing back to the start I see it was nicely foreshadowed.  A very good story..

And the Golden Derringer

I am embarassed to admit I didn't read far enough down the announcement to see that the Short Mystery Fiction Society also announced the winner of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in Short Mystery Fiction.  Congratulations to Michael Bracken!