The Phone Message, by Robert Cummins

 

"The Phone Message," by Robert Cummins, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2021.

 I think it has been years since I reviewed an author's first story here. This is a very nice one.

The beginning is likely to remind you of Columbo.  In the first scene Carole Donaldson calmly kills her husband.  Police detective Wesley Lovett is in charge of the investigation.  Ms. Donaldson, just as calmly,  informs him that she had motive for the crime.  Tons of motive. But she also appears to have an unbreakable alibi.

So far, as I said, so Columbo.  But what makes this story unusual is that Wes begins to wonder whether he wants to break the alibi.   That gives a nice variation on the usual cat-and-mouse game.

A Winter Night's Dream, by Michael Wiley

 "A Winter Night's Dream," by Michael Wiley, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2021.

This is the second appearance here by Mr. Wiley.

The private eye story goes back at least to Sherlock Holmes.  The version we think of as the hardboiled dick is a product of the 1920s.  (As Donald Westlake pointed out "hardboiled" is WWI slang and "dick" for detective springs from Prohibition.)  It is nice to see people think up new clothes for this old hero to wear.

Take Sam Kelson, the hero of this story.  He calls himself a "not-so-private investigator."  Due to a  brain injury he can't help but tell you whatever's on his mind.  "I'm an open book -- unzipped -- a gushing hydrant."

Fascinating concept, and suboptimal for a P.I.  His potential client isn't impressed:

"You're something of  a bastard, Mr. Kelson."

"That's CANDOR to you, Chubby Knees."

Chubby - excuse me, the client - walks out of the office and is promptly murdered.  Kelson wants to catch the killer.  The police detective in charge is also unimpressed.

"First, there's no WE," she said.  "There's the police and the not-police.  You're the not-police.  That means you can only make things worse." 

Snappy dialog throughout.  By the way, most of the characters in this story are librarians, Wiley doesn't fall into the usual stereotype traps.

"Librarians like to talk.  They could make reality TV out of this place."

Truckstop Salvation, by Leigh Lundin

 "Truckstop Salvation," by Leigh Lundin, in The Great Filling Station Holdup, edited by Josh Pachter, Down and Out Books, 2021.

This collection of stories inspired by Jimmy Buffett songs starts off with a bang, with a tale by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer Leigh Lundin.

It's 1978 in eastern Tennessee.  The narrator is a TV reporter and he witnesses the arrival of Tommy Peters, a hometown boy who made it big as a country singer.  

The town is about to be flooded to make room for a dam, and Peters offers to hold a benefit festival to raise money.  That makes him a hero for some people, but not all the locals love him.  Like the sheriff whose ex-wife used to be Peters' lover.  And the ex-wife's brother, now a fire-and-brimstone preacher.  No surprise that bad things are going to happen at the festival.

Some clever lines here:  "Sheriff Bulwark hadn't yet succumbed to the fat-Southern-deputy stereotype, but he'd been studying the brochure."

Katerina Goes to Studio City, by Thomas Perry

 "Katerina Goes to Studio City," by Thomas Perry, in The Strand Magazine, LXII, 2020.

This story puts me in an awkward position.  I always publish my best-of-the-year list in my final SleuthSayers column of January, to give me a few extra weeks to catch those last stories.  But this issue of The Strand didn't arrive until late February.  I will have to go back and add this tale to my list.  Ah well.

Katerina is a teenager leading a miserable life in Moscow with no hint of a better future.  Then her best friend escapes to the United States and Katerina, a very resourceful girl, arranges to go as well.

Naive as she is, she does not realize why a Russian oligarch ("He's like a king,") would be willing to help a beautiful young girl come to California.  He sends a different man  to her apartment every night and Katerina develops a wide assortment of tricks and games to keep them out of her bed.

Does this begin to sound familiar?  Are you perhaps humming a few bars of Scheherazade?  

Before this very clever story ends Katerina will ring in a different and also very old tale.

The Tennis Church, by Sophie Hannah

 

"The Tennis Church," by Sophie Hannah, in The C Word, Spellbound Books, 2021.

The proceeds from this book go to support Britain's National Health Service.  The title refers to COVID, but few of the stories make any reference to that plague.  Always weird to come across an anthology with no editor.

"I haven't disappeared," said the voice on the other end of the line.  No hello, no introduction, nothing.

Nice starting point.  The person receiving the call is Charlie Zailer, She's a cop.  And the caller, she realizes is Tasha, an old friend she hasn't heard from in years.  What was this strange conversation about?

Charlie has her own problems, mostly in-laws who have a very different worldview than she and her husband.  And oddly enough, that is not unrelated to the trouble with Tasha who, on Christmas day, does seem to have disappeared. 

A clever story with a satisfactory ending.

Boo Radley College Prep, by Karen Harrington

 

"Boo Radley College Prep," by Karen Harrington, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2021.

As I have said before, sometimes I read the first page of a story and find myself silently telling the author: You got something good here.  Don't screw it up.  Harrington, it turns out,  is not a screw-up.

Which is more than we can say about Tony Reyes.  He is fifteen years old, short on luck and, he will tell you, short on brains.  A hurricane has forced him and his mother to move in with the brother of his deceased father, and it isn't a happy or healthy home.

Right down the block, however, is what his uncle calls "the Boo Radley house," a spooky looking joint whose owner never seems to appear in public.  Curiosity - and the hopes of earning chore money - causes Tony to visit.

And there he meets a grouchy old man with a lot of brains and a good reason to hide from the public.

Two desperate souls in situations that are only getting worse.  Can they help each other somehow?

Hell of a story.

 

   

Flinders' Flit, by H.L. Fullerton

"Flinders' Flit," by H.L. Fullerton, in Mystery Weekly Magazine, February 2021.

The defining experience of Cassie's life was her father abandoning the family when she was eight years old. So when her husband disappears one day leaving behind "drawers upended, hall closet ransacked, its door drooping off its track, books and belongings scattered to the four winds..." it doesn't occur to her that he might not have left of his own accord.  

The police find that suspicious, to say the least.  

Your husband was gone, your house was a disaster and you didn't call the police?

I figured he left in a hurry.

There is a mystery here and Cassie works out in a satisfactory manner.