Tamsin & the Church Ladies, by Susan Daly

 

"Tamsin & the Church Ladies," by Susan Daly, in Malice Domestic 17: Mystery Most Traditional, edited by Verona Rose, Rita Owen, and Shawn Reilly Simmons, Wildside Press, 2023.

This is the third story by Daly to make it into this blog.  It has just about everything I want in a cozy: interesting small town setting, eccentric and memorable characters, a reasonable motive, and good writing.

It's a small town in Ontario in the 1970s and the first source of conflict is an unlikely match-up.  Tamsin, our narrator, is a Women's Studies professor when the "discipline was so new the paint was still wet on the department head's door."  She marries Mike, an Anglican minister, even though that isn't her faith.

Would you be astonished that some of the congregants disapprove of her?  Me neither.  And when Tamsin finds the corpse of her husband's most vocal opponent floating in the river, things get more complicated.

 I do have one complaint with this story: the solution comes way too easily, pretty much unearned by our sleuth.  But it's a fun trip to get there.

 

 

 

Martin, the Novelist, by Marcel Aymé

 

"Martin, the Novelist," by Marcel Aymé, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July/August 2023. 

Can I call this a 2023 story?  It seems to have been written (or set) in the 1930s, and the author died in 1967.  But I think this is it's first publication in English.

And it is a treat.

Martin is a successful novelist with one great flaw.  He kills off his characters.  Even his protagonists.  Sometimes in the middle of a book.  In one novel he killed off everybody.

His publisher can't stand it anymore and extracts a promise that no one important will die in his next book, or no money.

That's hard enough for Martin to bear but even worse is a visit from one of his characters, who is very unhappy with the plot.  Everybody's a critic, right? 

And then one of his friends comes with a special request: Could Martin put a certain real person in his book, kill her, and thereby bump her off for real?

Talk about meta.  Aymé rings more changes on the theme and they are delightful.   

Writer's Block, by Ed Ridgley

 

"Writer's Block," by Ed Ridgley, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2023.

Each issue of AHMM features a contest called the Mysterious Photograph.   To enter you have to write a crime story of no more than 250 words based on the picture.

In the thirteen years I have been reviewing short stories I have covered perhaps a dozen pieces of flash fiction but I think this is  the first time one of these contest winners has been my pick of the week.

Here it is, Writer's Block.  This is where all the writers go when they can't think of a word to say...

So what we have here is a metaphor, a parable if you wish.  I happen to love parables (Kafta, Borges, LuGuin, all greats).

Until, at the end, the story makes a turn so sharp you could cut yourself.

And I'll stop there so as to stay shorter than Mr. Ridgley's tale.

Concrete Dog, by Stephen Ross

"Concrete Dog," by Stephen Ross, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2023.

This is the third appearance in my column by Stephen Ross, my fellow SleuthSayer. 

It is 1940 in New Zealand (Ross's home turf.)

Frank has enlisted in the army and is about to go off to the war.  But the day before he sails he is considering  something really dangerous: doing a favor for his crooked brother.

Brother offers him fifty pounds to steal concrete dog from a rich man's house.  Brother has health problems and  can't possibly lift the beast, hence the request/offer.  Why is the stone pooch worth that kind of money?  Well, brother offers an explanation which doesn't hold a lot of water.  Of course, there is more going on...

But Frank and his wife really need the money.

Things go in a surprising and satisfactory direction.

Wrong Road to Nashville, by Joseph S. Walker

"Wrong Road to Nashville," by Joseph S. Walker, in Weren't Another Other Way to Be: Outlaw Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Waylon Jennings, edited by Alex Cizak, Gutter Books, 2023.

Walker hasn't appeared on this page since, um, last month. This is his ninth story to make my best-of-the-week list.  Very different from the last.

Our hero is Caleb, a school custodian, built like a pro wrestler.  His goal is to be a Nashville singer-songwriter and it looks like he may have the talent for it.

But first he has a little problem to solve.  His new girlfriend has been kidnapped by bad guys who want him to drive a load of contraband to... Nashville.  This wasn't the way he planned to get there, but you do what you have to do.

 A nice story of steadily building suspense.

 

 

The Good Neighbor, by Jeff Abbott

 

"The Good Neighbor," by Jeff Abbott, in Austin Noir, edited by Hopeton Hay, Scott Montgomery, and Molly Odintz, Akashic Books, 2023.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

We're in suburbia where good local schools make a house worth keeping forever, and neighbors have known each other for decades.

Bill dies of a heart attack. leaving behind his much-younger trophy wife Dierdre and resentful college-age son Peyton.  This is not a happy home.

Viv, their neighbor, also a widow, loves the whole family.  The conflict she sees across the cul-de-sac makes her very uncomfortable. Then she discovers something that makes her suspicious and even more uncomfortable. 

The suspense builds nicely as Viv tries to figure out what she can and should do.

A Flash of Headlights, by Ken Linn

"A Flash of Headlights," by Ken Linn, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May/June 2023.

This one is right in my wheelhouse, as they say.   I am drawn to stories about people who screw up and then seek redemption, successfully or not.  

Brody does yard maintenance.  A year earlier he was charged with a DUI.  He has been sober ever since, just barely.

But that's not the issue for which he seeks redemption.

He makes a casual spur-of-the-moment decision to do what he considers a friendly gesture.  This leads to a tragedy - a tragedy which affects people he cares about.  

Many years ago I wrote here: "There is a streak of puritanism running through some noir literature.  Take one step off the straight-and-narrow and you are inevitably doomed.  Things keep getting worse and every attempt you make to correct your path only drags you inexorably toward the pit."

This story doesn't have the feel of noir, but it does have that sense. Every move Brody can make feels like it will make his situation worse.

If there is a moral in this fine story it is this: To achieve your goal you first need to figure out what your goal really is.  

The Incurious Man, by Terence Faherty

"The Incurious Man," by Terence Faherty, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May/June 2023.

This is the tenth appearance in this column by Faherty, which ties him at the tippy-top with Mark Thielman.  Mark is a fellow SleuthSayer while Faherty is a SleuthSayer alum.

I think it was Michael Mallory who predicted that most crime fiction in the future would  be set in the days before smart phones and the Internet made certain kinds of research (and calls for help) inconveniently convenient.  This story is an example.  It is set in the 1990s and if it were written about the world of today it would have to be quite different.

Owen Keane is a private detective and he is starting a job at a law firm.  Well, not much of a job.  He has been hired on a temporary basis mostly to provide company for a friend who has reluctantly taken over the family business.

But on his first day, taking the train from New Jersey to New York City, he encounters something very strange.  Every day for a week a woman near Rahway has held up a sign for people on the train to see.  The signs seem ominous, if not threatening, and refer to Giovanni and Elvira, whoever they are.

Everyone on the train is fascinated by the signs except one man who ignores them.  And that attitude fascinates Keane, and makes him suspicious, because he is a curious man.  His lawyer friend says: "It might be dangerous for you  two to come together.  Like matter meeting antimatter.  There could be an explosion."

Of course Keane ignores his advice and discovers a particularly cruel  scheme.  Terrific story.

We Are The Stonewall Girls, by Joseph S. Walker

 "We Are The Stonewall Girls," by Joseph S. Walker, in More Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties,, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2023.

This is the eighth appearance in this space by Joseph S. Walker, which puts him near the top of the heap.

Narrator Neil Fell is a gay private eye in New York City in June 1969.  That plus the title should tell you what the story is going to be about.

A wealthy man named Grierson comes to Fell with a problem.  He is not gay but he has made friends with some of the young men in Christopher Park, the ones who call themselves queens.  Now one of them, Alice, has disappeared and Grierson is worried about him. He has approached police and other private eyes but they assume he is interested for sexual reasons and are anything but helpful.

Fell takes on the case and, as you can imagine, winds up involved in the Stonewall Riots.  I thought I knew that subject fairly well but I learned a lot of details.  

The case is interesting as well, and the solution is satisfactory.    

Murder Mnemonic, by Loretta Sue Ross

 "Murder Mnemonic," by Loretta Sue Ross, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, May/June 2023.

A very silly story, but satisfying.  (Hey, what's that but about?  Let's say and satisfying.)

Here's the start:

Gilbert DuPont fell off a cliff and landed someplace really weird.

In fact Gilbert has been murdered and now he is being reincarnated.  He remembers his past life - parts of it anyway.

By the time he turned three he was talking in complete sentences, though he still lacked the fine control to properly pronounce R and L. So when he told his mother about being "Gibbewt" and being "moodood" he did it in a matter-of-fact little high-pitched voice with an adorable lisp. 

How does a family adjust to having a reincarnated murder victim in the nursery?  And what happens when he believes he sees the people who killed him?

A very clever story right up to the satisfying last paragraph.

One Night in 1965, by Stacy Woodson

 

"One Night in 1965," by Stacy Woodson, in More Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties,, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2023.

This is the second appearance by Woodson in my column. 

The night in question is August 26, the last opportunity for young men to avoid the draft by getting married.

Jack Taylor is a private eye in Las Vegas.  He is also a Korean War veteran who doesn't appreciate men who are trying to dodge Vietnam.

He is hired by a U.S. senator from Nevada whose son has gone missing.  The senator fears that he is about to make a hasty marriage to avoid induction into the army which is scheduled for the next day.  The truth turns out to be more complicated.

One problem with writing historical fiction  - especially when history is recent enough for readers to remember the time - is the danger of anachronisms.  Did anyone refer to men's abdomens as six-packs in 1965?  And definitely nobody was using the term Ms.

But that's nitpicking. This is an interesting story that takes a different approach to the private eye story.  

Brick Fiend, by Joseph S. Walker

"Brick Fiend," by Joseph S. Walker, in Die Laughing: An Anthology of Humorous Mysteries, edited by Kerry Carter, Mystery Weekly Magazine, 2021.

I usually review stories in the year in which they are published, but I did not get my hands on this book (in which I have a story) until a few months ago. 

This story, by the way, marks Walker's seventh appearance in this blog. It reminds me of a New Yorker casual, since it begins with (and was no doubt inspired by) clippings from two articles.  They refer to a "massive LEGO theft ring," stealing sets of the popular toys to sell at a sizable markup.

The narrator is a brick fiend, shamefully addicted to LEGO games, "that sweet space where all that matters is the next brick and the rest of the world just gently detaches itself and drifts away."

When his pusher's supply dries up our hero gets desperate.  Worse, he is being pursued by a cop: "Partner of mine stepped on a loose pile of two-by-two bricks one of you animals left laying around." Very funny stuff.

Drinking in the Afternoon, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

"Drinking in the Afternoon," by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2023.

This is the eighth appearance on this blog by Rusch.

Here is a proposition I would hate to have to defend: Maybe writing a compelling low-key story requires more skill than writing a fast-paced action tale.  I think bullets and mayhem may tend to keep me turning pages more than subtle psychological stuff.

On the other hand, come back next week and I may disagree with myself.

This is a low-key but compelling story that caught my attention immediately and never let go.  Here is how it starts:

When it was all over, he didn't count how many friends he had lost.  He just walked out of the hospital into the thin sunlight on that hot August afternoon, tossed his uniform in the nearest bin, and did not look back.  He left his car in the employee parking lot.

Good writing?  Oh yes.  And so many questions we want answers to.  When what was all over? Did his friends die or simply cease to be his friends?  What type of job did he have that required a uniform?  And why would he abandon his job, his car, and presumably the life he has been living?

On the side of avoiding spoilers I will fail to answer these questions but I will say that Quinn (like everything else going forward, his name is brand new and almost randomly chosen) is not a criminal and is not on the run from anything except bad memories.

He winds up in the southwest, a thousand miles from his past, and starts to build a new life, totally different from the one he left.  Then there is the possibility of a crime, and a puzzle that needs solving.  And oddly enough, the solution may connect to the choice he made...

 

Of Average Intelligence, by O'Neil De Noux

 "Of Average Intelligence," by O'Neil De Noux, in Black Cat Weekly, #85.

This is the second appearance here by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer. De Noux is a retired police officer so it is not surprising that many of his stories feature cops.  As does this.

Let's look at the opening:

"No offense, Office Kintyre.  But I'm smarter than you."

Have you already taken offense?  I certainly have.  Attorney Matt Glick is the speaker and he has recently killed his wife.  The cops have a ton of circumstantial evidence against him and he has a ready explanation for every bit of it.

Blood in the bathtub?  She cut her hand on an X-acto knife.  Hair in the trunk of his car?  She borrowed it and had to change a tire. And so on.  

In fact the only thing Glick doesn't have  a ready work-around for is his own smug superiority, and you know darn well that that is what is going to bring him down.  Which it does. 

You will enjoy the process.

 

The Boys Were Seen, by Patrick Whitehurst

 "The Boys Were Seen," by Patrick Whitehurst, in Trouble in Tucson, edited by Eva Eldridge, 2023,

I have written here before about the opportunities in tropes (or if you prefer, cliches) of our field.  The private eye being visited in his office by the mysterious femme fatale.  The nice suburbanite who wants to kill a spouse.  Etc.

There are obvious dangers here. Not another story about a crook being double-crossed by his partners!

But there are wonderful opportunities as well, simply because the reader thinks they know what is coming.  If you can subvert that, you may have something good.

Terry Carson is a hit man for Alan, a crime boss.  Alan calls him in because some of his thugs were seen committing a crime and now they are about to kill the witness.  Carson is to be the backup in case anything goes wrong.  But it turns out he knows the witness, quite well...

Well, there's your cliche.  Bad guy has to decide what to do when his job conflicts with his personal life.  We've all seen that one before.

But Whitehurst takes it in an unexpected direction.  Quite a treat.

Steer Clear, by Mark Thielman

 "Steer Clear," by Mark Thielman, in Reckless in Texas: Metroplex Mysteries, Volume 2, edited by Barb Goffman, North Dallas Chapter of Sisters in Crime, 2023.

This is the tenth appearance in this space by my fellow SleuthSayer, Mark Thielman, which I believe makes him the current record-holder.

Any story that makes me laugh out loud several times has a good chance of making this list. And this story is even a locked room mystery.  

Okay, a locked barn mystery.

 Detective Alpert of the Fort Worth Police has been assigned to look into the disappearance of a steer.  Yes, it's a famous piece fo beef, but does it really deserve the attention of a Major Case Division cop?

Maybe it wouldn't except that the night before Alpert left a party with the ex-wife of his boss.  "[H]e should have ignored those whispers emerging from his glass of Jim Beam.  Jim had made sure he had noticed Brittney's leather pants..."  

Funny story with a satisfying solution.

Mrs. Hyde, by David Dean

 

"Mrs. Hyde," by David Dean, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2023.

This is the seventh appearance here by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer.

Regular readers of this column may recall that I am not a big fan of pastiches, but I do like homages.

The pastiche is fan fiction: Author B trying to create a story in the style of and with the characters of Author A. Consider, for example, ten zillion Sherlock Holmes stories not written by Conan Doyle.  

A homage on the other hand is something more subtle. B delves into the universe A has created and produces something new and different.

Dean has offered us a homage here and, boy, it is a doozy.

This is apparently the first in a series of Victorian-era stories about Dr. Beckett Marchland.  He is an alienist, which is to say, an early psychologist.  One day he receives a troubling letter from a woman who reports that her once loving and kindhearted husband is being changed for the worse by a bad companion.

The woman is Mrs. Edward Hyde.  The wicked friend is Dr. Henry Jekyll.

At this point the reader may be excused for saying: Huh?

Dean has turned Robert Louis Stevenson's novella inside out and takes us to very interesting territory indeed.  I should mention that this tale takes place in London, 1888, during the plague of attacks by Jack the Ripper.  Could Jekyll and/or Hyde be involved in those grisly crimes?

Purists may point out that Stevenson's book appeared in 1886, but that's a small bit of disbelief to suspend for such a wonderful story.  The characterization is rich and one twist literally made  my jaw drop.

   

 

The Cancun Game, by Tosca Lee

 "The Cancun Game," by Tosca Lee, in Infinity: A Suspense Magazine Anthology, edited by Catherine Coulter, Suspense Publishing, 2023.

I received a free copy of this book from an author.

I read a lot of stories that claim to be set in the present yet show no sign of knowing about recent developments.  Consider the thousands of protagonists who go off to meet bad guys without bringing a cell phone.

So I appreciate a story that is firmly rooted in a recent trend.

Piper is an online influencer.  She gets free clothing, jewelry, and trips, just for posting pictures of herself with all these luxuries.

Sounds like the good life, right?

Well, there's a downside.  It takes a support team of two of her friends plus the occasional hairdresser or make-up artist to make it work. And a lot of the pictures are faked.  (Pictures of two free days at a resort are stretched out to look like two weeks, etc.)

Still, things are looking up.  Piper is moving up toward the top of the influencers on the social media channel.  But then, someone starts killing whoever gets to the top...

I figured out where this was going, but I enjoyed the trip a lot.

Kimchi Kitty, by Martin Limón

 

"Kimchi Kitty," by Martin Limón, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2023.

This is the seventh story by Limón to make it onto my list.  

His work reminds me of the TV show MASH.  Both involve the U.S. military and Korea, of course, but I am thinking of an odder coincidence.  The cast of that show spent, I think, eleven years portraying a war that lasted just over three.  

Limón's characters have filled more than a dozen novels and many short stories in South Korea without ever escaping from the early 1970s.  

George Sueño and Ernie Bascom are CID officers, U.S. Army detectives and their stories are police procedurals, showing in meticulous detail how they track down bad guys in Seoul and other points.  The stories are believable, nuanced, and fascinating.

In this one our heroes are chasing a mugger, probably an American serviceman, who is attacking GIs and getting more violent with each attack.  Sueño guesses that he is obsessed with Kimchi Kitty, a Korean national who sings in a country band.

The cops hope to use her as bait to catch the bad guy before things get even worse. But Kitty, frightened as she is, turns out to have more agency than expected...

Margo and the Yachting Party, by Terence Faherty

"Margo and the Yachting Party," by Terence Faherty, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2023.

This is the ninth appearance in this space by Terence Faherty and the second for these characters.

It's 1941.  Margo Banning is an assistant on a radio show in New York City.  One of the stars of the show is criminologist Philip St. Pierre.  He is an odd duck with elaborate tastes in clothing and a new hobby of sorts: he is hunting for Nazi spies.

On the show he announces that "Certain German sympathizers here in our fair city have hatched a scheme to resupply the German U-boats operating off our coast."  He urges everyone to be on the lookout for a "pirate yacht."

After the show an FBI agent arrives with the bad news that a Nazi courier St. Pierre had caught earlier had escaped.  The detective refuses to help the Feds, being determined to hunt for his mystery ship.

It seems like St. Pierre knows more than he is telling (as usual).  And Margo gets caught up in the mess (also as usual).

A light and fun historical.

  

Crime and Convenience, by Steve Shrott

 "Crime and Convenience," by Steve Shrott, in Hook, Line, and Sinker: The Seventh Guppie Anthology, edited by Emily P.W. Murphy, Wolf's Echo Press, 2023.

"Look, I never told you, but I have a bit of a record.  I can't get mixed up in something like this."

"I ask when you hired if have record.  You say no."

"That could be interpreted many ways."

Dialog is character.  

The first speaker is Cathy. She has a bit of a problem with honesty.

The second speaker is Amir, who owns the convenience store where she works.  He is a very honest man and he has a bit of a problem with Cathy.  

When the story starts Amir has discovered that she stole a man's wallet.  He insists that they go together to return it.  This leads to the discovery of a corpse and a lot of trouble.  It's almost like honesty is not the best policy.

A funny story.

The Puzzle Master, by David Morrell

"The Puzzle Master," by David Morrell, in Playing Games, edited by Lawrence Block, LB Productions, 2023.

 This is the second story by Morrell to appear here. 

Quentin has just finished his latest mystery novel and is getting antsy waiting for his editor's reaction.  His wife Beth suggests they kill some time putting a jigsaw puzzle together.  

The illustration on [the box] showed what looked like a square in a New England village, with rustic shops, Victorian houses behind them, and a tree-covered hill in the distance.  A farmer's market was in progress.  Smiling families paused at tables that displayed tomatoes, peppers, apples, and jars of what a sign said was strawberry jam.

Sounds charming, doesn't it?

They have such a good time that they start working on another puzzle, created by the same artist.  Is this the same village?  Are they seeing some of the same people?  And is something... wrong with this picture somehow?

There are seven puzzles and if you work them in the order they were created (you need to put them together because you can't see all the details from the box cover), they seem to tell a story.  Or so Quentin, the mystery writer suspects.  

Clever story, cleverly told.

 I don't usually talk about runners-up, but the proceeding story in the book, "Lightning Round," by Warren Moore, made it hard to choose.

 

The Soiled Dove of Shallow Hollow, by Sean McCluskey

 

"The Soiled Dove of Shallow Hollow," by Sean McCluskey, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2023.

It is rare that a first story makes my best-of-the-week list, rarer still when that first story  is a long, possibly novelette-length piece.  This is one.

And it's a private eye story, of sorts.  What's a private eye story?  If you say a story about a private eye you are clearly unaware of what I call the Scudder exception.

When the Private Eye Writers of America were creating the rules for their Shamus Awards one of the very best characters in the field was Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder.  For most of his career he had no P.I. licence.  So it is not surprising that the rules said, essentially, that a P.I. story had to be about someone who investigates crimes for pay, but doesn't work for the government.  

So a lawyer or journalist would qualify but not  a cop or a spy.  And people like Scudder who, as he put it, did favors for friends who then bought him gifts, was eligible. 

Which brings us to Shane Caine, the narrator of our tale.  One night in a bar in Georgia he brags about some crimes he solved, not a P.I., but as a person who  "just sort of stumble[d] into things."

A man named McDounagh overhears him and is desperate for his help.  He lost his wallet to a couple of con artists in a  badger game.  The wallet contains a top-security I.D. card and if he doesn't get it back by 8 A.M. he will lose his job.

Caine immediately recognizes that  the badger game was not the usual variety.  Something odd is going on, something beyond a casual theft.  What follows is a long but fast investigation that ends in a trail of blood.

I enjoyed the adventure and hope Shane Caine stumbles into some more of them.

The Snake, by Mike McHone

 "The Snake," by Mike McHone, in Mystery Magazine, February, 2023.

Certain themes or premises show up so often in any genre that they more or less make up a subgenre of their own.

Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen Mystery magazine, has said that the type of story she sees the most often is someone plotting to kill their spouse.  An overlapping story is the hitman. 

So how do you create something new and original in this category?  As Charles M. Schulz said, drawing a comic strip means doing the same thing every day, but doing it different.

McHone manages it.  

David is hiring a hitman to kill his wife.  Here's the opening:

"I want you to listen because this is the only time I 'm going to say it.  You don't think you can go through with this, you think you're going to crack up when the cops come, I walk.  Hear me?  And before you think to ask, no, you won't get your down payment back.  Period."

That's good writing.  Good dialog is personality and we know a lot about the hitman just from his voice.  This story is something like 80% dialog, more if you count David's inner monologue.

So, the writing keeps us reading, but do we get anywhere interesting?  Most definitely.  McHone has come up with more than one original twist on the classic premise.

Elvis Duty, by Matthew Wilson

 "Elvis Duty," by Matthew Wilson in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2023.

First of all: great title.  

This is Wilson's second appearance in this blog. It is also the second appearance by his main character, although this one takes place a decade before the first.  

Hans Burg is a police detective in Bad Kissington, West Germany, in 1959..  He is trying to solve the death of a doctor who appears to have died of a drug injection in a cheap hotel.  This problem is complicated by another duty he is assigned; helping to protect Elvis Presley, already a music sensation, who is serving his army tour in Germany.

The two cases come together in ways that are logical and sad.  A well-written story.

The Grown-Ups Table, by Steve Hockensmith

 

"The Grown-Ups Table," by Steve Hockensmith, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2023.

This is my  first review of a story published in 2023.  That seems like a good opportunity to remind you that authors/editors/publishers are welcome to send me books or magazines for consideration, paper or electronic.  I promise to  read at least the start of every story sent and review the best I read each week.

Speaking of which, we have here the seventh appearance by my friend and fellow SluethSayer Steve Hockensmilth.   If I understand this essay correctly he is writing a novel in stories and this is the third chapter. 

All the stories relate to the closing of the Monkeyberry Toy Store in River City.  This particular tale shows us the Christmas dinner of the family that owned the store, and a classically dysfunctional family it is.

We have Uncle Dan who can't stop spouting the philosophy of his favorite right-wing radio host.  And there is Cryptique who, until we turned goth a few months ago, was named Bobby.  (He's drinking coffee because it is "the only available beverage that is black.")

But the main character is Tia who has just graduated to the Grown-Ups Table.  And she is carefully orchestrating the ditnner conversation to reveal who murdered the family matriarch, Gammy Bibi.   

For me the hardest part of writing a story is the plot - as opposed to premise, characters, dialog, etc  This is especially true in the type of story in which clues are revealed.  I admire how Tia/Hockensmith reveal the pieces of the puzzle until only one suspect is left.  Clever and satisfying.   

The Best of the Year

 

My selection of the best stories of 2022 is up now for your inspection at SleuthSayers.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, by Sean McCluskey

"Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday," by Sean McCluskey,  in Mickey Finn, Volume 3, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2022.

Some stories are mostly about the telling, by which I mean a tale which might seem ordinary if presented in the usual manner takes on extra merit by being given an unusual structure.  As the title of this story implies, we have an example today.

In effect, we are going to find out how the adventure ends and then return to see what led up to it.  I am reminded of Richard Stark's novels about the thief Parker .  Stark's books  are usually told in four parts, three of which are seen from Parker's point of view.  Part Three shifts to another character, often ending with him being fatally surprised by Parker's reappearance.  Then in Part Four we find out what our protagonist had been up to.

Alon Schulman's daughter has been kidnapped by bad guys who want in on his smuggling operation.  (The way he learns of the kidnapping is one of the cleverest parts of the story.)  Schulman contacts a law firm who sends Crenshaw who they  describe as efficient and discreet.  He also turns out to be deadly as heck.

One reason this story is best told out of order is that several people turn out to have schemes of their own, and can't be trusted  But you will enjoy it and you can trust me on that.

The Delivery, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

"The Delivery," by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, in Mickey Finn, Volume 3, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2022.

This is the fifth story by Welsh-Huggins to appear on this page, and the third about Mercury Carter.  Mr. Carter is a deliveryman but he doesn't work for Fed Ex.  He's the guy you call when someone else would like to get their hands on the package, and is willing to kill for it.

In that case the clients are an elderly couple and even before he reaches their house he has good reason to suspect the bad guys are waiting for him.  There's several of them and Carter is just one relatively small guy.  The kind people tend to underestimate.  

It's a good suspense story, with one flaw in my opinion: the author gives Carter a convenient ability so unlikely it leans toward super power territory.  I enjoyed it anyway.

Burying Oliver, by John M. Floyd

"Burying Oliver," by John M. Floyd, in Mickey Finn, Volume 3, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2022.

 This is the third appearance here by my fellow SleuthSayer.

 When our story begins Bucky Harper is digging what seems to be a grave.  Sheriff Morton arrives and demands to know what he's doing.  Bucky says he is burying his dog Oliver.  The lawman doesn't recall any such dog and thinks Bucky might be doing something quite different, and even suggests a motive.

What follows is more or less the opposite of a twist plot. Instead things happen step by step with the inevitability of Greek tragedy.  And at the center of the tale is calm, phlegmatic, Bucky, just taking it all one shovel-load at a time.

Clever and satisfying.

The Sounds of Silence, by Gabriel Valjan

 "The Sounds of Silence," by Gabriel Valjan, in Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, edited by Josh Pachter, Down and Out Books, 2022.

It is New York City in 1977, the summer of Sam.  There is a murderer loose; not the Son of Sam.  This killer is targeting Asians in subway tunnels.  Police Detective Joseph Burrow figures out what's going on, largely because of his experiences during the Vietnam War. 

But the war has left him with more than just useful experience: it has damaged his hearing.  Can he can keep his career as a cop wearing hearing aids?  Can he function without them?  What if even they don't help?

A clever story of a man trying to solve a life-and-death problem while coping with his own crisis.

This Night in Question, by Tod Goldberg

"This Night in Question," by Tod Goldberg,in Witnesses for the Dead, edited by Gary Phillips and Gar Anthony Haywood, Soho Press, 2022. 

This is Goldberg's third appearance in this column.

Cecil, the narrator, is a third generation mobster in California.  The police show him a video of his daughter being beaten by an ex-lover, who then takes her and her own daughter away.  

Cecil assumes his child is dead.  The police are searching for the culprit and the child but Cecil has his own investigation to conduct, and it's not limited by any rulebook.  

This is a grim story but it is believable and well-written.

Spiders and Fly, by Gary Phillips

 

"Spiders and Fly," by Gary Phillips, in Witnesses for the Dead, edited by Gary Phillips and Gar Anthony Haywood, Soho Press, 2022. 

This is the second time Phillips has appeared on this site.

A nice suspense story, told in an interesting manner.  We start in media res, to get all fancy, with Cresston running for his life.  Then we see how he got into that mess.  And then what led to that.  After that we return to his desperate chase.

Seems Cresston saw something nobody was supposed to see.  A murder.  And worse, the killers were cops.  Better keep running, pal.

He winds up with a surprising (and surprisingly resourceful) ally.  And then the story takes a turn I never expected.

 

Street Versus the Stalker, by Pam Barnsley

 

"Street Versus the Stalker," by Pam Barnsley, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November/December 2022.

A modest little story that gets most things right.

Gina is an inner-city teacher and a genuinely nice person, the kind who makes friends easily with people you and I might cross the street to avoid.

When some of these folks notice a van following her in a suspicious manner they react, much like antibodies to an infection.  But they are busy and not the best organized crowd, so it is not certain whether the good guys will win...

Nice writing, too. Here is a description of the woman who runs a produce store:

Ava rattled off the math for the oranges under her breath, offered a discount, entered the amount in the cash register, loaded oranges into Gina's cloth bag, nudged a box of apples back into place with her hip, held the portable credit-card machine for Gina to swipe, scratched her shin with her running shoe, and tilted her head to watch the street.

No wonder her grandson says she has ADHD.

I enjoyed this tale a lot.

More Than Suspicion, by Joseph S. Walker

"More Than Suspicion," by Joseph S. Walker, in A Hint of Hitchcock, edited by Cameron Trost, Black Beacon Books, 2022.

First of all: great cover.

This is the  sixth story I have reviewed by Walker, and the second this year. 

The place is a small town in Colorado.  The time is just after Pearl Harbor.

Hannah is the projectionist in the town's movie theatre.  She is also the de facto manager since her boss ran off and enlisted.

Supply chain issues leave her running Hitchcock's classic movie Suspicion over and over.  You would not expect it to maintain much of an audience, but one newcomer returns to view it almost every night.  

Darlene's obsession is based on her dislike of the film's ending, in which the husband turns out to be innocent and the wife merely imaging the danger she is in.  "The end is the only part that's a lie.  A pretty lie, but still.  He kills her.  Of course he kills her."

Clearly Darlene has a secret.  It turns out Hannah has one as well - beautifully foreshadowed - and it is one she would love to reveal to Darlene, if she could gather the nerve.  

You won't be surprised that Darlene's past comes calling and the two women have to work together if they want to survive into the future.  A terrific story.

The Other French Detective, by O'Neil De Noux

 "The Other French Detective," by O'Neil De Noux, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, November/ December 2022.

My friend and fellow Sleuthsayer, O'Neil De Noux, has series characters at work in different periods of New Orleans history.  Sometimes they will investigate crimes in the same building, a century apart.

In this clever story it is 1877 and police detective Jacques Dugas is in demand because he is one of the few officers in the mostly-Irish force who speaks French.  Galjour, a police inspector from Paris, has just arrived.  He speaks no English but he is seeking a French prostitute who killed the wife of a government official and is believed to have escaped to Louisiana.

Dugas helps the French cop search the city's brothels but things get more complicated the next day when another Frenchman arrives, also claiming to be Inspector Galjour.  Of course, this is long before the days of photo I.D.s and instant indetity checks via the Internet.  And then it turns out that the woman both men are after may be a victim rather than a killer...

A twisty story I enjoyed a lot.

A Rat Tale, by Mark Thielman

"A Rat Tale," by Mark Thielman, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, November/December 2022.

 Mark Thielman, my fellow SleuthSayer, is having a good year  This is his third appearance on my list in 2022 and his ninth overall, which I believe has him tied at the top.  It is also the second story in this series to make my best-of-the-week list. 

Bernard de Vallenchin is a sixteenth century French attorney with an odd specialty.  Medieval law allowed animals to be tried for their alleged crimes.In this case the farmers of a region are demanding that rats be punished for ravishing their crops.  Our advocate faces penalties if he can't find an adequate defense.

What follows is what they refer to in TV legal dramas as "winning on a technicality," as de Vallenchin embraces the skewed logic that says rodents can be taken to court.  A very funny story, based on an actual case. 

Paying the Ferryman, by E.J. Wagner

 

"Paying the Ferryman," by E.J. Wagner, in Jewish Noir II, edited by Kenneth Wishnia and Chantelle Aimee Osman, PM Press, 2022.

I have said before that my favorite short stories tend to have at least one of these characteristics: great characters, a twist ending, a great concept, or heightened language.

By heightened language I mean that the words do more than get you from the title to the last page.  In effect, they express a world view. This could be  style as flat as Hemingway or as Baroque as Faulkner.

Which brings us to the opening of Wagner's story.

He tells Judith that he loves her. 

They face each other across the butcher'-block counter, the one made fifteen years ago in the first months of their marriage.  She slices sweet peppers for their dinner -- the peppers are bright green, red, and yellow, and she loves the look of them as she slides them into a big white bowl...

He tells her that he truly loves her, and has since they met, but that he -- and here he smiles sadly -- he has fallen deeply, desperately, passionately in live with Hadassah Sharon, the Israeli graduate student he is mentoring, and that he simply can't control his feelings because they're overwhelming.  It is bashert -- predestined.

I skipped a few paragraphs but this gives you some idea of what Wagner is doing.  The rich detail.  The oblivious egotism of the husband.  

Imagine if this story in the more customary style: past tense, with the husband's words in quotation marks.  Some of the magic vanishes.  The story becomes ordinary.

The rest of the story tells how Judith responds to hubby's announcement.  It is a neat tale, neatly told. 

You may wonder why a story in Jewish Noir II has a title referring to Greek mythology.  Well, there are at least two links, as you will see if you read it.  And I hope you do.

 

Do-Ye0n Performs a Cost-Benefit Analysis, by Mark Niemann-Ross

"Do-Ye0n Performs a Cost-Benefit Analysis on a Career Based on Questionable Activities," by Mark Niemann-Ross, in Crooked 2,  edited by Jessie Kwak, Bad Intentions Press, 2022.

Oddly enough, this is the second story I reviewed this month which qualifies as science fiction.  Both are set in the near future and involve a society in which one's access to resources is strictly regimented by one's activities.  

In Thielman's story your ability to progress depends on your perceived good citizenship. In Niemann-Ross's world it depends on what job you can get.

And Do-Ye0n is stuck at Level One because of a screw-up he made at his last position.  His automated job coach tells him he can get a job in "corporate network penetrative testing," which is to say ransomware.  

It is highly lucrative, and legal.  Well, sort of legal.  Unless some agency, or some other entity decides it would be better to make it temporarily illegal...

Robert Heinlein wrote a novella called "If This Goes On--" and that is one of my favorite types of science fiction: the one that extrapolates from what the author sees as a growing trend in our society.  Niemann-Ross has written an interesting example.

The Relentless Flow of the Amazon, by Jonathan Stone

"The Relentless Flow of the Amazon," by Jonathan Stone, in Mystery Writers of America Presents: Crime Hits Home,  edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022.

I have said before that sometimes a story begins so strongly, with fine writing and a clever concept, that by the end of the first page I am rooting for the writer: Don't screw this up.  We have an example of that today.

It is the beginning of the great lockdown, "the time of boxes.  Everything delivered." Annie and Tom,  new to their suburban neighborhood, are getting tons of boxes which they leave in their garage to give the virus time to wander off.

One day they get an Amazon box they are not expecting.  It contains two plastic but clearly real guns.  How the hell did that get delivered?  Why?  Should Annie and Tom tell the cops, trying to explain what happened?  And who wants cops wandering around their house, breathing their bugs on them?

Maybe they can just put the guns away and forget about them. Besides, as Tom points out, it's not like there's any ammunition.

I bet you can guess what arrives in the next load of packages.

Things get wilder and I won't give anything away.  I had a ball.

The Cost of Something Priceless, by Elizabeth Zelvin

"The Cost of Something Priceless," by Elizabeth Zelvin, in Jewish Noir II, edited by Kenneth Wishnia and Chantelle Aimee Osman, PM Press, 2022.

This is the second appearance here by my fellow SleuthSayer. Zelvin has written other novels and stories about the Mendozas, a fictional family of Sephardic Jews, some of whom sailed with Columbus. 

 And this tale combines two generations widely divided by time.  The story begins as a letter from a modern Mendoza bequeathing to her granddaughter the family's most precious treasures: a necklace and the documents proving it belongs to them.  But there is a lot more to her history than that.

Intertwined with this tale is the third-person story of how Rachel Mendoza really acquired the necklace half a millennium ago.  Let's say that both women found their way through considerable difficulties.

My favorite part of the story is Grandma trying to explain life in the 1950s to her grandchild, and especially what it meant for her to marry a WASP.

People say so glibly that two people come from different worlds.  Everyone said it about Foster and me.  I laughed it off.  I had no idea what it meant.  Take "going to Princeton."  When a Jewish boy went to New York went to Princeton, it meant he was exceptionally smart.  He'd competed successfully in academics, athletics, and an array of showy "extracurricular activities," to make the extremely small quota of New York Jews the university was prepared to tolerate.  When Foster Gale Bentbridge IV went to Princeton, it means that Foster Gale Bentbridge I, II, and III had gone to Princeton. Period.

A skillful story with a powerful ending.

 

Future Tense, by Mark Thielman

"Future Tense," by Mark Thielman, in Black Cat Magazine, #57. 2022. 

This marks the eighth appearance by my fellow SleuthSayer, Mark Thielman, this time with a story set in the near future.  I assume it was inspired by this program.

Terran Korb and his pregnant wife want to move to a better apartment in a safer neighborhood.  But that requires more Citizenship Points.  The cameras of the Panopticon are constantly on watch, looking for good and bad behavior.  Pick up litter?  Good.  Fail to smile at your neighbors?  Bad. 

It doesn't seem like Korb will ever score enough points to get what he wants.  But there are rumors about brokers, people who have learned to work the system, and can set you up with the points you need.  But when you make a deal like that there is always a price to be paid...

This story is  a treat.

Banana Island, by Susan Breen

"Banana Island," by Susan Breen, in Mystery Writers of America Presents: Crime Hits Home,  edited by S.J. Rozan, Hanover Square Press, 2022.

This is the third appearance in this space by Susan Breen, and her second this year.  That's a rare thing.

Marly is a scam baiter for the IRS.  I knew there were amateurs doing this work for fun, but are there really professionals?  Cool.  Marly engages with scam artists, ideally to catch them, but at least to keep them busy so they are not robbing the gullible.

 Marly has been spending a lot of time on the phone with a Nigerian who she believes is a con artist, but she can't quite convince him to ask for money.  In fact, he seems a bit of a charmer.  To raise the stakes she tells him about the situation her family is facing: Most of the members live in Long Island City, where homes are shooting up in value. A realtor just made a blind offer of two million dollars for Marly's house.  Her Nigerian pal urges her to take it, of course.

But the family turns out to have bigger problems than the real estate boom.  And as things get more dangerous Marly has a harder time figuring who the good guys are.  I very much enjoyed this twisty tale.

The Golden Coffin, by Emory Holmes II

 

"The Golden Coffin," by Emory Holmes II, in South Central Noir, edited by Gary Phillips, Akashic Press, 2022.

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book.

I occasionally lament the lack of historical mysteries in Akashic's Noir Cities series.  This is a good one.

It's 1935.  Prometheus Drummond, a young teenager, has hopped freight trains from his collapsed home in hopes of living with his Uncle Balthazar, the manager of a high-class Negro hotel in Los Angeles.  His uncle gives him the post of factotum. "That mean, every damn thing I say is a fact.  And if I point to a heap of satchels yonder but the elevator, I expects you to hop up and tote 'em where they needs to go.  Fact-tote-um -- get me?"

Dialog is one of the strengths of the story. Another is the depth of detail Holmes gives us about life in South Central in the time.

As for crime, someone is murdering young Black women. Prometheus discovered one of the victims.  The city and the police force isn't much interested, but a smart Negro cop named Kimbrow has figured out the pattern.  Can they catch the bad guy before he kills again?

I have written enough historical mysteries to know how hard it is to avoid anachronisms but I have to say: according to the Google Ngram Viewer the phrase "media outlet" didn't arrive until decades after the time this story is set in.  But that's about the only criticism I can make of this fine tale.

 

Cold Case, by Bev Vincent

 

"Cold Case," by Bev Vincent, in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Issue 12, 2022.

This is the second story by Vincent to make my best-of list.

I think it might have been my friend Michael Mallory who predicted that an increasing number of mysteries would be set in the pre-cell phone era, because those modern marvels make so many tropes of our field ridiculous.  (It's bad enough for the hero to enter the villain's lair without back-up, but when he can get help just by reaching into his pocket...)

Bev Vincent, on the other hand, demonstrates how you can make use of recent technology (and current events) to build a story.

Roger is a retired chemist living in Texas in the recent record-breaking cold spell.  One frosty morning he finds a dead man sitting on his porch. When the police arrive he refuses to let them into the house, due to COVID fears, which does not endear him to the shivering constabulatory.  So Roger, with plenty of time on his hands, decides to investigate.

Let's try to count the tech involved in this tale: cell phones, Google, Zoom, video doorbells, NextDoor... I may have missed some.  Not bad for a retired guy.

On top of that the story is witty. When a neighbor comes over dressed for the cold weather we get this:

"Is that really you in there?" he asked.

"I can see you," she said. "Undressing me with your eyes."

"That'd be a job," Roger said, hoping she couldn't see him blush.

The story is  a treat.

Deconstruction, by David Dean

"Deconstruction," by David Dean, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2022.

 This is the sixth appearance by my fellow SleuthSayer on this page. 

Bruce is terribly excited to get his first permanent job as an electrician for a construction company.  But problems start piling up.  His coworker/roommate is a pothead who seems to only keep his job because the boss is his uncle.  And then there is a lot of equipment from other contractors going missing.  By the way, whatever happened to the guy Bruce replaced?

From the very beginning you can guess where this story is going but you will enjoy the trip.

For a Better City, by Peter W.J. Hayes

"For a Better City," by Peter W.J. Hayes, in Mystery Magazine, September 2022.

 This is the second appearance in this space by Mr. Hayes.

Charlie is six months out of prison, and six months sober.  He is living in a halfway house and trying to deal with some decisions he regrets.  

Into his life wanders Ivan who is somehow allowed to hang around the halfway house and claims that he wants to help the residents.  But Charlie is wisely skeptical.  Ivan asks him for a favor and he is willing to pay for it, but Charlie realizes there are strings attached.  Nevertheless he figures he has no choice but to say yes.

The strings, when they arrive, are very tangled indeed.  A nice noirish tale. 

Joey Cacuzza Loses His Election, by Thomas Pluck

 "Joey Cacuzza Loses His Election," by Thomas Pluck, in Low Down Dirty Vote 3, edited by Mysti Berry, Berry Content, 2022.

 This is the third appearance in this space by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer.  

Joey is an enforcer for the New Jersey Mafia.  He is also the lover of it's most important capo, Aldo.  And Aldo wants him to kill a masseuse who could reveal some embarrassing facts about him.  

Problem is, Joey is developing something like a conscience.  The cause of this inconvenience is his niece Nicky, a high school student who is what you might call woke.  She has Joey thinking, not only about the issue of killing a guy only because he might cause a problem, but also about Aldo's support for a mayoral candidate  who is a terrible choice.  

Can Joey resolve these issues and stay alive doing it?  Clever stuff.

The People All Said Beware, by Christopher Latragna

"The People All Said Beware," by Christopher Latragna, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2022. 

It's St. Louis, MO, in 1955.  Henry is a professional gambler who works mostly on a steamboat called the Duchess.  One day he learns that the ship will be off-limits on Saturday due, according to rumor, to a mob wedding.

Henry thinks it odd that the management of the ship would close down on the busiest day of the week, so he begins to investigate.

This reminds me of a spy story, although there is not a shred of espionage involved.  Like a classic John LeCarre tale, or a set of matryoshka dolls, each secret exposed only reveals another secret, right up to the end. 

The title is another secret, at least for me, since it is obviously a quotation, but from what?  The answer is perfectly appropriate.   

Blindsided, by Eric Brown

 

"Blindsided," by Eric Brown, in The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Mango, 2022.  

I have a story in this book.

Emma is a successful writer of suspense novels.  She is also blind.  One day a man named Dan breaks into her house.  At first he seems to be  a fanatical reader, a la Misery, but it turns out to be more complicated and scary than that.

I'm not a big fan of straight suspense stories, although this is a good one.  What made this the winner for the week is a very clever trick Emma plays.  I have never seen it used in fiction before, although it is nicely logical.  A clever twist.