Scariest. Story. Ever, by Richard Van Camp

 "Scariest. Story. Ever," by Richard Van Camp, in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, edited by Shane Hawk, and Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., Random House, 2023.

The first four paragraphs of what I wrote last week apply again to this one.

So: What's a mystery? Most of the world goes by Otto Penzler's definition: A mystery is a story in which crime or the threat of crime is a major element.  It's useful, although a little broad.  (It includes Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, and The Brothers Karamazov, for example.) 

When I first read Van Camp's piece I thought: This is a really fine tale.  Too bad it isn't a crime story, because if it was, it would be my choice for the week.

But then I thought about it some more (and this is definitely a story you are likely to think about) and concluded, heck yes, it is a crime story.  Just not one that fits into any of the familiar subgenres. So here we are.

The narrator has just made it to the finals of the Scariest. Story. Ever contest using a story he learned from a village elder.  Tomorrow he will be flown to Yellowknife for the finals.  But he needs to find an even better story to tell, so he goes to another elder, his Uncle Mike. and tries to convince him to tell him a properly horrifying tale.

And Mike obliges.  Sort of.  

How does crime get involved?  And why is there so much to think about?  You'll probably want to read the story twice to sort it all out.  It's worth it.

White Hills, by Rebecca Roanhorse

"White Hills," by Rebecca Roanhorse, in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, edited by Shane Hawk, and Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr., Random House, 2023.

Bear with me.  I have a lot to say before I get to the story today.

Let's start with the subtitle of the book.  Since reading Adam Smyer's book I have tried to avoid using the word "dark" except to mean a level of light or color. Not my place to tell people of color what words to use, but it was the first thing I noticed.

Second, I figured "dark fiction" probably meant crime here, but in this book it generally  means horror.  Horror is not my thing and writing about it is not my mandate here. But I have been working my way through the book, looking for relevant material that rang my chimes.

Third, I did not technically read this book at all. I have an audiobook version so, for the first time in my memory, I am reviewing stories I listened to.  That just means I am less likely to quote passages.

Now, onto the story, which is terrific.  Here is how it starts:

White Hills is everything Marissa ever wanted, right down to the welcome sign by the community mail drop reminding everyone of the HOA rules. Some people don't like HOAs, but Marissa loves them. 

Let's hear some more about our protagonist.

Marissa has many accomplishments. Her body, for one. Tucked and toned and filled to perfection by the best professional surgeons, trainers, and estheticians Houston has to offer. 

So Marissa is perhaps a bit shallow and self-satisfied with  her wealthy new husband.  As the story goes on we watch her rattling off current cliches and mantras with her life.  But does she really fit in in White Hills?

One night she springs two surprises on her husband.  The one she is excited about: she's pregnant.  The one she didn't give a thought to before mentioning: she's part Native American.  And suddenly things change.

You may assume that this is a story about a husband turning violent.  It's not.  It isn't supernatural either.  If there is horror here it is strictly human, and that's the way I like it.

 

Shamu, World's Greatest Detective, by Richie Narvaez

 

"Shamu, World's Greatest Detective," by Richie Narvaez, in Killin' Time in San Diego, edited by Holly West, Down and Out Books, 2023.

Well, you can't argue about truth in advertising.  The title tells you exactly what this story is about.  Shamu is an orca at SeaWorld (the eighteenth to bear that name) and thanks to new technology she is able to communicate with people.  Turns out she is, as the title says, a brilliant detective.  The story is narrated by her assistant, Angie Gomez.

A billionaire who owns a baseball team wants to hire Shamu to find a missing ballplayer.  Shamu turns him down because, she says, his moustache "reminded me of a sea lion with whom I once shared billing.  An unapologetic ham." But when the ballplayer is murdered and his sister comes looking for help, Shamu takes on the case.

One of the pleasures of this story is Shamu's dialog.  Here she is talking to her police nemesis: "I can solve the case in time for you to get home and rest your minuscule human brain." 

I can't help wondering whether this story was an entry for the Black Orchid Novella Award.  It has several winks to Rex Stout fans.  (Shamu's use of the word "flummery, for example.) And it cleverly forces the protagonist to be an "armchair" detective.  Shamu ain't going to the scene of the crime.

Clever and fun.

Dead Even, by J.R. Sanders

 

"Dead Even," by J.R. Sanders, in Killin' Time in San Diego, edited by Holly West, Down and Out Books, 2023.

A nice private eye story. I can't quite figure out when it takes place, except that Hollywood is swarming with B-movie cowboys. One of them is a friend of our narrator, P.I. Nate Ross, and that friend has a friend and business partner named (all right, nicknamed) Pooter.  Pooter has two things of great interest: a ton of money and a girlfriend named Cassie Plumm.

Nate, "being both by profession and disposition  [a] suspicious guy" thought she might be more interested in Pooter's bankroll than his charming personality.  Then Cassie comes to him for his professional help.  A former boyfriend is threatening her and she wants Nate to eliminate him.  Nate doesn't specialize in the kind of elimination she is hoping for but he is willing to look into the matter.

I won't go into detail about what happens but it hits a lot of the classic hardboiled dick motifs.  And it's a fun read.

The Little Library Thief, by Scott William Carter

 

"The Little Library Thief," by Scott William Carter, in Mystery, Crime and Mayhem, Issue 15: Library Cases, 2023.

Gavin's retirement is not going the way he hoped.  His beloved wife died just after they moved into their new home.  He isn't functioning well, just going through the motions, and some of those motions involve putting up in his yard the little library Stacey had purchased. A teacher, she had acquired heaps of children's books and wanted to give them away.

Dutifully, Gavin sets up the little library and stocks it with books.  But someone keeps emptying it, stealing all the contents.  Is it Fay, the nice divorcee who has taken an interest in him? Is it some local no-good?  Maybe a kid?

This is a well-written story I enjoyed.  I have to say I wasn't crazy about the ending.  Could have used a little foreshadowing, in my opinion.

Never Enough, by Liza Cody

 

"Never Enough," by Liza Cody, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023.

This is Liza Cody's third appearance in this column.

Among the rules decreed to new writers of fiction is this one: Create a likable protagonist.

Cody seems to have missed the memo. Sheena, the narrator of this tour-de-force novella, is a horrible person and I can't remember the last tine I rooted so hard for the main character of a tale to lose.

How bad is she?  Well, she never refers to her only child  as anything but "the annoying kid."  She has nothing but insults for her only two friends, one of whom she says "I don't like much."

But worse, when she decides that "the marriage was worn as thin as the hall carpet," she set her sights on an artist.  The fact that he had been in a  relationship for decades only made it more of a challenge. She describes the long process of joining up with the artist. 

Sheena is a scary, narcissistic, probably delusional, menace.  You wouldn't want to meet her, but she makes a fascinating protagonist.

Lavender Diamond, by Edward Sheehy

 

"Lavender Diamond," by Edward Sheehy in Crimeucopia: Boomshakalaking! Modern Crimes for Modern Times, Murderous Ink Press, 2023.

This is one of those mysterious books that came into existence without an editor.  And this is, I believe the first story from Crimeucopia to make my best of the week list.

What is the difference between comedy and farce?  Farce is the extreme end of the spectrum, clowning, no suspension of disbelief necessary.  Neil Simon's The Odd Couple is comedy, his Murder by Death is farce.

And what Sheehy offers us today is farce.  Here's how it starts:

I'm done writing first-person point-of-view stories.  My latest saga of a modern family stretching back several generations, voiced by 72 first-person characters including pet dogs and cats and a crow circling the narrative dispensing omniscient commentary, had been soundly rejected by dozens of publishers.

Can't say that I blame them.  But my first question: is this meta?  Is this Sheehy telling us something about his writing?

No, as it turns out this is his character, who is a writer.  But now it gets confusing, because our hero, still writing in first person, visits a library where he encounters...

A tall dude, six-feet-four with a shaved head, wore a gold chain over a tight turtleneck that showed off a thick musculature gained from years of pumping iron at Cumberland Correction on a narcotics charge.  Inside the joint the dude known as Craz had been the leader of a brutal and murderous prison gang.

Wait a minute!  How does our character know all this?  Have we wandered into third person omniscient narration?

Strap in.  It's going to be a wild ride.

The Last Shot, by Dave Waskin

 

"The Last Shot," by Dave Waskin, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023.

I don't usually notice a theme in issues of AHMM or EQMM but this one is  centered on  games.  Last week I wrote about a boxing story.  This week it's basketball.  There's also baseball, computer games, and I haven't finished it yet.

But let's get to Waskin's tale.

Connor is a college ball player but he knows he isn't good enough to make it  to the NBA.  That's just the tip of the iceberg of his problems: his father's in prison, his girlfriend seems to be out of his league, and he's having trouble with his classes.

And then the team's star player tries to drag him into a point-shaving scam with some very nasty gangsters.

But that's just the surface.  There are layers within layers here, wheels within wheels.I won't go further except to say Connor has enemies and allies you won't expect.  I enjoyed this one a lot.

Doing Business, by Mark Hannon

 

"Doing Business," by Mark Hannon, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2023.

Foreshadowing in a story can take many forms.  This tale starts deep into the action and then goes back to the beginning.  I don't usually think of that as a form of foreshadowing, but it feels like it here, partly because that first scene is just a few paragraphs long.

But there is another type of foreshadowing through the story, a kind of trouble coming at the protagonist.  It is obvious to the reader but it is not at all clear whether the hero, who is also the narrator, sees it.  And that makes for a lovely bit of suspense.

Kelvin is a boxer, about to go into the biggest match of his career.  His manager, sparring partner, and the inevitable hangers-on are all providing well-meaning contradictory advice. Ah, but is all the advice well-meaning?  And will Kelvin see the spider in the web?

A very nicely written first story.  

Your 10th Bond Is Free!, by Wendall Thomas

 "Your 10th Bond Is Free!, by Wendall Thomas, Crime Under the Sun, A Sisters in Crime Anthology, edited by Matt Coyle, Naomi Hirahara, and Tammy Kaehler, Down and Out Books, 2023. 

Ava is struggling to keep the family business afloat after her father's death.  The business happens to be As You Were Bail Bonds.  This means that as she grew up her family friends were cops and petty criminals.  Petty because her father didn't have enough money to bail out, say murderers.

Our business model depended on aspirational, incompetent criminals accused of crimes with a bail amount  under twenty-five grand.

I love that word aspirational.

When her business card is found in a homicide victim's pocket Ava's life and career are endangered.  A quirky story that provides a new look at the bail bond business.

 

The Regular, by James Thorpe

 

"The Regular," by James Thorpe, in Crime Under the Sun, A Sisters in Crime Anthology, edited by Matt Coyle, Naomi Hirahara, and Tammy Kaehler, Down and Out Books, 2023. 

Ray is drinking more than he should  His wife is gone and that led to him making a bad mistake.  What's worse is that Veronica knows about it.  She is the pianist at the bar where Ray does his too-much-drinking.

And, ironically, she starts nagging him just like his wife did toward the end of their marriage.  Why doesn't he demand a promotion?  He needs to make more money...

Just like his wife, except that Veronica's motive is different.  That link between pianist and wife is the amusing spark that kept me turning pages, but there are many clever twists to come in this neat little tale.

Making the Bad Guys Nervous, by Joseph S. Walker

 

"Making the Bad Guys Nervous," by Joseph S. Walker, in Black Cat Weekly, #102.

This is Walker's third appearance in my column this year.  It is his  tenth overall, which ties him with Terence Faherty and Mark Thielman at the top of the pantheon, for the moment.

Tim Chadwick is a disgraced ex-cop who sometimes fills the times between drinks by doing some unlicensed private eye work. (cough cough Scudder? cough cough).

A client is worried that his mother's suburban neighborhood is being plagued with porch pirates - people stealing packages left by delivery workers.  He wants the bad guys caught before they escalate to violence and he is willing to pay Tim to put a week into it.

So Tim finds himself sitting in the living room of Sandy, the client's mother, peering out the window, eating her sandwiches, and listening to her attempt to play the piano.

"Is that Springsteen?"

"If you're feeling generous."

It's a low-key story that shifts to a low-key sort of violence.  Very clever.

Lenny, but not Corky, by Daniel Stashower

 

"Lenny, but not Corky," by Daniel Stashower,  in Cleveland Noir, edited by Michael Ruhlman and Miesha Wilson Headen, Akashic Press, 2023.

The publisher sent me a copy of this book.

Cleveland rocks.  There are a lot of good stories in this anthology.

Some stories are primarily about plot, others about character. This one is about style.

The narrator is talking to a reporter, "you." We never hear her speak, just Anders' reaction to her questions.  

We learn that she is writing an article about the disappearance of a paper boy fifty years earlier.  Everyone refers to him as a boy, but he was actually nineteen.  Anders and his wife were hippies and they were close friends with the kid.  They could have been the last people to see him alive, except they had had a fight.  The guy who wrote a book about the disappearance "the great and all-knowing Julian Story," Anders calls him, made it look as if it was Anders' fault, that if hehad been there the boy might have been saved.

Anders doesn't like Julian Story or the book, and he thinks this article may be his last chance to spell things out.

If you have to drag all this up again, at least let me tell it my way, like you said.  No, I'm not bitter... 

Oh, he's bitter, all right.  And he has a fine story to tell.

The Silent Partner, by Susan Petrone

 

"The Silent Partner," by Susan Petrone, in Cleveland Noir, edited by Michael Ruhlman and Miesha Wilson Headen, Akashic Press, 2023.

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book.

I have said, more than once, that Akashic's Noir Cities series would be improved by having more historical tales.  This story proves me right for it is historical in more senses than one.

It's 1970.  The narrator (if he has a name I didn't catch it) writes about baseball history for the Cleveland Press.  He has to cover the 50th anniversary of the day a Cleveland player was killed by a pitch thrown by a Yankee.

The more he investigates  the more it appears that something weird happened.  Weird, like the beanball being deliberate?  Much weirder than that.

  This terrific story reminds me of W.P. Kinsella's many magic realism tales about baseball (Field of Dreams was adapted from one of his books). And that's a compliment. 

Her Upstairs, by Michael Z. Lewin

 

"Her Upstairs," by Michael Z. Lewin, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2023.

This is the fourth appearance in this column by Mr. Lewin.

I just checked.  I have used the word "silly" in reviews here at least fifteen times.  Last time I wrote: "A very silly story, but satisfying.  (Hey, what's that but about?  Let's say and satisfying.)"

And here we are again.

Barry and Evvie are an older couple whose happy home is disturbed by a very annoying upstairs neighbor.  They get desperate enough that they start thinking about killing the bad lady.  But first they decide to pray on it.

Well, not pray exactly.  You see, they believe in the old gods, the Greek ones, and they know that the gods communicate with humans through... cribbage?  Seriously?

There's a lot of technical cribbage stuff in here I mostly ignored but the  dialog between Olympian deities was right up my alley.  

Aphrodite, known for her reason and passion, was first to speak.  "Aw, isn't that lovely. They have a problem and they want our help."

"That's not what The Game is for," Zeus roared again...

"Blow them away!" Ares, the God of War, urged.  "Rules are rules."

Aphrodite is known for reason?  Don't think so.  But the story is a treat.