Treat or Trick, by Mark Thielman

 

"Treat or Trick," by Mark Thielman, in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Sept/Oct 2026.

 This is the twelfth appearance in this column by my fellow SleuthSayer. 

Ollie is at a job interview:

"You're here because Grinder recommended you. How do you know The Grind?"

"From around."

"He says you met at juvie.  That right?"

"My records are sealed so that I might move forward in life without the stigma," Ollie recited.

"You want the job, or don't you?"

"We met at juvie." 

 In that bit of chatter we learn a lot about the situation and also the personality of the protagonist. That personality will be a major point of the story since we don't see in his head and we want to figure out how he is reacting to  what's going on.

What's going on is a suspiciously easy job with a cooperative boss.  ROOK is a nonprofit that tries to improve the lives of young people.  And all Ollie needs to do this late October, is give out candy  to all the kids who come to the door.  What could be simpler? 

Do you smell something fishy?  Ollie certainly does.  And we read along, wondering what he plans to do about it.  There are nice clues along the way.  A witty, twisty tale. 

 

 

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, by Joseph Goodrich

 "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," by Joseph Goodrich, in What the World Needs Now: Mystery Stories Inspired by the Music of Burt Bacharach, edited by Martin Edwards, Level Best Books, 2026.

So, what's a private eye story?

Glad you asked. A simple answer would be a story in which a major character is a private eye.  But it is not that easy.

When the Private Eye Writers of America created the Shamus Awards they said any story qualified if the protagonist was a non-government  worker paid to investigate a crime.  I think of this as the Scudder Exception since one of the best private dicks of the time was Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder who did not have a P.I. license.  As he put it, he sometimes did favors for friends and sometimes they gave him  gifts.   

The typical non-P.I. starring in a private eye story is a lawyer or reporter, but Goodrich offers something different.  Howie Feldstein is a New York auctioneer and appraiser. A producer friend has flown him out to Hollywood to check the authenticity of a photograph he has been offered: one supposedly shot on the set of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and featuring none other than President Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.  Invaluable if it is real.

Feldstein's investigation takes him down a number of rabbit holes, not least of which are a missing woman and, eventually a killing.  This is a nice example of a private eye story without a P.I. license or rundown office in sight. 

Oh, spoiler alert: This story does reveal key points of the plot of the movie. If you haven't seen the flick do watch it.

Good Fences, by Terena Elizabeth Bell

"Good Fences," by Terena Elizabeth Bell in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2026. 

If you are going to use one of the classic tropes of the genre (spouse planning to kill spouse, criminal forced to commit One Last Job, etc.) you had better find some way to make your story stand out from the mob.

As I have said before, one of the characteristics that makes a tale stand out for me is heightened language.  That is, the words are doing more than carrying the reader from the title to THE END.  In effect, they are expressing a view of the world.

This classic trope here is feuding neighbors.  Harlan and Leon are both lawn-proud and when moles invade their property each is determined to send the beasties to the other side.  

As for heightened language, this is what happens after one of our boys is dissatisfied with "his wife's third cousin once removed" who he hired to reseed the lawn:

So Harlan said to H on the boy then told his wife to get their money back, but Ethyl said, Now Harlan, and he calmed down just enough to let the matter go. 

This is more than informal writing, this feels like someone is telling you the story orally.  Imagine how different it would be if  the tale was written in the more standard style: When the grass grew back spotty Harlan said "To hell with that boy. You need to get the money back." All the flavor would go out of it.

This story is a lot of fun. 

 

 

A Lost Dream, by Dave Zeltserman

 

"A Lost Dream," by Dave Zeltserman, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2026.

This is the second story by Zeltserman to make my page.  

Ah, what we have is a breath of fresh noir.  The formula of classic noir is the American dream seen through a funhouse mirror:  A nobody tries to make something of himself,  but his method is connected to  a crime and  the universe stomps him.  But this story takes an interesting twist on the formula.

When the tale starts Dan Sutton is already a successful burglar, but one night he has a dream (an American dream)  of the perfect crime.  In the morning he can't remember it and he is so upset he tells his girlfriend, who doesn't realize what he does for a living.

To save his relationship, and because no crime is as good as the one he dreamed, he seeks a way to go straight.  He succeeds, but as is so often the case in noir, you can change yourself but the hard part is changing your past. A very satisfying tale.   

 

Ovaloid Skulls, by Benoit Severac

"Ovaloid Skulls," by Benoit Séverac, in Toulouse Noir, edited by Charles-Henri Lavielle, Akashic Press, 2026.

The publisher sent me a copy of this book.

Hervé Roblés came up with a clever scheme to smuggle migrants but the Albanians who had the monopoly on that sort of thing did not appreciate the competition.  Therefore he has had to exile himself to Toulouse. While he waits for things to cool down he has a late-night job handling phone calls for a computer service agency.

 Everything is okey-dokey until one night he looks out the window and sees someone wandering through the old cemetery outside.  He becomes fascinated, if not obsessed: What is that guy doing wandering around in the middle of the night?

In this very clever and suspenseful story Séverac has combined a very old type of crime with a 21st century innovation. 

 

 

Noir Canal, by Manu Causse

"Noir Canal," by Manu Causse, in Toulouse Noir, edited by Charles-Henri Lavielle, Akashic Press, 2026.

Akashic Press sent me a free copy of this book. 

Some of the stories in this book seem more interested in giving tours of a neighborhood than exploring a crime.  Not this one, though.  It gives the readers a mystery: not a  whodunit, but a why.

Olie is a trans woman who is a sociology student and volunteers to help prostitutes.  You would think that gives her plenty of reasons to want to avoid the police.So why did she call the police at 4 A.M. to report finding a murdered man beside the canal? And then stay around to answer their questions?  

She has her reasons, which we will eventually learn. Along the way we will also learn a great deal about how prostitution works in France.  Very nice ending, too. 

 

The Briar Patch, by Tom Milani

"The Briar Patch," by Tom Milani, in Wish Upon a Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales, edited by Michael Bracken, and Stacy Woodson, Level Best Books, 2026.Michael Bracken sent me a copy of this book.  Some themed anthologies are pretty general - stories about movies, say - and some are very specific.  For example, each of these crime stories uses the title of, and refers to the plot of, a fairy tale.In the original tale Brer Rabbit outsmarts the bigger and dangerous Brer Fox by convincing him to "punish" the bunny by tossing him into the briar patch - exactly where he wants to be. So how does that turn into a modern mystery story?Rabbit is the nickname of a worker at Brothers Salvage, an auto junkyard.  The boss thinks he's reliable but not very bright.  So we're ready for our hero to be underestimated, and he is.The junkyard is being used as a transfer point for drugs and one day Mr. Fox comes to pick some up, but Rabbit has done something with them.  Can Rabbit outsmart the violent Mr. Fox? Can a bunny hop?There are a few nice easter eggs in this fun story, such as the name of the bartender.