I am not Fluffy, by Liza Cody

"I Am Not Fluffy," by Liza Cody, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 2013.

There's a lot going on in this one.  It takes a while to piece the story together and understand the way the narrator is telling it.  So, who is she (besides not being Fluffy, I mean)?

I worked as a hostess and greeter at a bar-restaurant six nights a week for five years while Harvey qualified to be a tax lawyer.  And for two nights a week Harvey was going round to Alicia's flat to bounce her bones.  "you were never there," he complained.  "What was I supposed to do all by myself every night?"

What indeed.  Insult to injury: Alicia was an old friend of hers.  And now that Harvey is making a bundle he wants a no-fault divorce and a big white wedding to his new love.

Our narrator goes for textbook passive-aggressive tactics: refusing to sign the divorce papers.  She can't afford a lawyer on her hostess salary so she changes to a less respectable but more remunerative profession.   

And she begins writing her protests against the world around her in chalk on the sidewalk, signing them Fluffy.

Is this a story about a nervous breakdown?  A split personality?  Or is our heroine learning to not be Fluffy anymore, to be a person who can take care of herself?

Damn good work.

Othello Revised, by Denise Middlebrooks

"Othello Revised," by Denise Middlebrooks, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, December 2013.

One big problem with little stories is they don't leave much room for us critics to pontificate and display our wisdom.  Last week I talked about my philosophy concerning flash fiction.  This week we aren't dealing with a flash, but definitely a short tale.

And it is one I like a lot.  In fact, I probably care for it more than most people would, for two reasons.  First, I find myself in a circumstance not too far removed from the protagonist, and second, the story, Middlebrooks' first, reminds me of a certain piece by James Thurber, one of my heroes.

The narrator has just written a mystery novel and his wife recommends he takes it to a professional editor.  The editor turns out to be an interesting person, a real estate agent who reinvented herself in the recession, and she has some fascinating suggestions about the book.  Or what she thinks is the book.

And there we have to stop.  Go read the story.  It's November and you deserve a treat.

Acknowledgments, by Christopher Coake

"Acknowledgments," by Christopher Coake, in Kwik Krimes, edited by Otto Penzler, Thomas and Mercer, 2013.

Kwik Krimes is a collection of flash fiction, mysteries under 1000 words long.  I have written before about flash stories and concluded that there are basically three categories: outline, anecdote, and other.

The outline is generally the least satisfactory.  It attempts to cram into onto a postcard a plot that really needed more room to grow.  The anecdote tends to work better; one little slice of life (or in the case of this book, often a slice of death).  By the other I mean something bizarre, often something that would be painful at greater length but uniquely fits the little niche of the flash.

Take for example, Mr. Coake's contribution, which immediately made me think: why didn't I think of that?

The narrator simply offers his deep thanks to everyone who made his latest work possible, and we get the idea he is not talking about a work of literature:

Margaret, my wife.  You were this story's subject, its reason for being.  I think, by the end, you understood me at last. 

Very clever.

Other stories I like a lot in the part I have read so far include stories by Chuck Caruso and Bill Crider, as well as tales from  friends of mine, Gary Alexander and Jo Dereske.

The Psychic Investigator, by Janice Law

"The Psychic Investigator," by Janice Law, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December

2013.

I believe in full disclosure, which in the case of this blog means that you deserve to know if I might have some reason to favor a story other than its quality.

In this case it is a triple threat.  Not only is Janice Law a friend of mine,  and a fellow blogger at SleuthSayers, but I can also claim a tiny bit of credit for this story existing at all.  I was the one who suggested to Janice that she do something she had never done before: write more than one story about a character.  I think this is the fourth in this series, although I might be off.

And what a wonderful character she is.  Madame Selina is a spiritualist in New York City in the years after the Civil War, when quite a number of people long to speak to their dead loved ones.  Madame is assisted by Aurelius, the former emperor of Rome who allegedly speaks to her in trances, and by Nip Tompkins, formerly of the orphan's home, who assists with clouds of smoke and other special effects when the emperor proves unreliable.

In this adventure, a psychic investigator has arrive din the Big Apple and is making good money by revealing the tricks used by so-called mediums.  Madame Selina, no shrinking violet, applies the challenge direct, publishing an open letter thanking the professor on behalf of the true psychics for revealing their fraudulent competition.  She knows this will bring the man to her parlor.  Now she needs young Nip to find a weakness she can use...

"The mind needs little helps," explains Madame Selina.  And by hook or by crook she will provide them, and catch the bad guy in the process. 

Benign, by Caroline J. Orvis

"Benign," by Caroline J. Orvis, in Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble, edited by Claire Toohey, Criminal Intent, 2013.

When was the last time I featured the first published story by an author in this column?  It may have been this one by Raymond Goree last year.  In any case, Ms. Orvis offers us a unique story of revenge.

The subtitle for this issue of Malfeasance Occasional is "Girl Trouble," and in this tale it refers to female biology.  The narrator had a biopsy to look for possible breast cancer.  It left her with permanent pain and she isn't getting much sympathy.  After all, pain is subjective; maybe it's all in her head.  Why isn't she just grateful that the results were benign?

She doesn't see it that way.  Two years, three months, and five days of constant pain has left her bankrupt, alone, and in high rage. 

I started stalking my breast surgeon almost by accident.  I was sitting in my car weeping, again, after the latest useless appointment.

Well-written story with an ending I did not expect.

A Eye For A Eye, by Wenda Morrone

A Eye For A Eye," by Wenda Morrone, in All Hallows' Evil, edited by Sarah E. Glenn, Mystery and Horror, LLC, 2013.

A ten-year-old ghetto kid running drugs should be a sympathetic character, I guess.  I mean ten year olds don't do that sort of thing without encouragement from people who should be taking better care of them, right?

And Little J deserves a little of our sympathy, but he seems to have plenty of autonomy and street smarts as he works his way through Greenwich Village's Halloween parade, lookiug for the customer who was expecting a bag of dope.  Somebody gets killed and Little J tries to find the killer before the cops can blame it on him.

It's an interesting story and the most sympathetic character is the one person who actually seems to care about Little J, a cop who is careful to remind him that if he hadn't been dealing drugs, an innocent man wouldn't have died...

The Murderer At The Cabin, by Robert Holt

"The Murderer At The Cabin," by Robert Holt, in All Hallow's Evil, edited by Sarah E. Glenn, Mystery and Horror, LLC.

As I have said before, occasionally I will get a page or two into a story and think Okay, the Best Of slot is yours to lose, friend.  Don't screw up.

Mr. Holt didn't screw up.  The odd thing is, this tale is more horror than mystery, and therefore not my usual thing at all.  But the concept is  clever and the follow-through is close to perfect.  I worried about revealing too much and everything I am about to tell you appears in the first quarter of the story.  But if you have an intense dislike of spoilers feel free to stop reading this and go find the story.

Lexington is a very bad fella.   He's a serial killer with a complicated system of picking his victims and a suitably insane motive.  As the story starts he is looking for a new person to focus his attention on.  And he finds one in a cabin in the woods where a dozen wealthy people are holding a meeting.  So he takes his hatchet and prepares to single out his first victim.

Now, you might well be saying: hold it.  This is nothing special.  It's the plot of any slasher movie.

Yes, but here's the twist.  The people in the cabin have paid big money for a high-grade murder theatre experience, complete with elaborate props and make-up.  So when Lexington starts his work they think it's part of the show.

Okay, now it's up to a slightly clever slasher flick.

Then how about the second twist?  Unlike the seemingly omniscient monsters in those movies, Lexington doesn't know about the mystery theatre aspect and he is as baffled by his victims as they are by him.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. And that's a lot of bloody fun.

 

Dead and Buried Treasure, by Barb Goffman

"Dead and Buried Treasure," by Barb Goffman, in All Hallow's Evil, edited by Sarah E. Glenn, Mystery and Horror, LLC.

The creators' of this book were kind enough to send me a copy. Thirteen stories with a Halloween theme.  So far, this bit of romantic suspense is my fave.

At age twenty-five, Lizzie is the last member of her college crowd to remain single, a fact that her dear friends are not about mentioning.  At a wedding she meets a waiter who seems like a nice guy, but those same friends -- all married to doctors and lawyers, all thinner and more attractive than Lizzie -- are incredulous of the very idea of dating a waiter.  

And Lizzie begins to wonder who her friends are, in more senses than one.  Eventually, of course, there is a crime, and that reminded me of a very old joke about the difference between friends and real friends.

There is a twist at the end that didn't turn the whole story upside down but did make me say hmm...

A fun read.

The Wentworth Letter, by Jeff Soloway

"The Wentworth Letter," by Jeff Soloway, in Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble, edited by Clare Toohey.

The folks at Criminal Element have produced what they (and I) hope will be the first in a long series of e-anthologies.  I should say I have a story in this collection, so I have reason to be fond of it.  Editor Toohey has organized these stories of "girl trouble" in a way that I have never encountered before: from least to most graphic.  In other words, things will get nastier as you move through the text.  (My story comes about halfway through.)

I am still in the light and fluffy section I guess, and very much enjoyed this story by Jeff Soloway.  It starts with a new student arriving in a college class studying the works of Jane Austen.  Alex is the only man in the class and he is vulgar and rude.  He also claims to have a rare letter written by Austen (and recently stolen from a museum).

The professor, Charles, happens to be the son of a wealthy woman who is an Austen fanatic.  He's also sleeping with one of his students.  Things get very complicated fast.

And besides a clever plot there is wonderful writing.  Take the scene in which the professor's overbearing mother meets his lover for the first time, semi-dressed in his bedroom.

"I suppose your father is something virtuous, like a policeman or a tennis instructor?"
"You'll have to ask him," said Cheryl.  "First you'd have to find him.  My mother's a bank teller."
"And you're an English major.  I'm sure she hopes you go to law school."
"All she wants for me is a job where I don't have to make change."
"Consider taking credit cards, dear.  Charles, when you're done disgracing your profession, please make an appearance downstairs....Without concubine." 

This story plays in two ways on the theme of girl trouble.  First is the professor's involvement with his student.  Second is the debate over whether Jane Austen is merely "women's fiction," and somehow less worthy of study than serious fiction written, by male authors.  In light of the recent David Gilmour controversy the tale is oddly topical.

The Queen of Yongju-gol, by Martin Limón

"The Queen of Yongju-gol," by Martin  Limón, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine,

November 2013.

As I said last time I reviewed one of Martin's stories here, all of his books are set in South Korea in the 1970s.  In this tale he has changed time but not place, and his series characters, two army investigators, are nowhere to be seen.  Instead the hero is Roh Yonk-bok, one of the wealthiest men in Korea.

But, as we learn, he didn't start out that way.  He was able to get an education only through  money sent back home from his big sister who was working as a bar girl in Yongju-gol, a community that served American G.I.'s, where Koreans were forbidden as customers.  One day his sister disappeared and now, years later, Roh is determined to find out what happened to her.

It is a dark tale, full of betrayal and hard-learned cynicism.

"Canyou trust these people, sir?"
Roh turned to look at his bodyguard.  He was a faithful man -- in fact chosen for that quality -- and competent at his job, but he had little imagination.
"They want money, don't they?" Roh replied.
"Yes, sir."
"Then I have trust.  Not for them but for their greed."

Small Kingdoms, by Charlaine Harris

"Small Kingdoms," by Charlaine Harris, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 2013.

On this particular spring Tuesday, Anne Dewitt was thrown off her regular schedule.  Between brushing her teeth and putting on her foundation, she had to kill a man.

Got your attention?  I would think so.  This story has a lovely opening, reminiscent of my favorite start to a Richard Stark Novel: When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.  (Firebreak)

I have never read Ms. Harris before but as I understand it she had made her reputation throwing unlikely worlds together.  Anne DeWitt is, of all things, a high school principal, but as you can guess from her ability to off a bad guy in her bathroom before breakfast, she has a past.  The past not only explains her ease at handling a killer, but also the presence of the killer. 

Besides transporting a dead body she also has to deal with unreasonable demands and criminal behavior by the shcool's star athlete.  Fortunately she finds an unlikely ally.

Was this story a bit of wish-fulfillment?  If every school had a staff member who could handle problems so efficiently,  our academic careers might have been more pleasant.  For the good guys, at least.

The Sons of Tammany, by Mike Carey

"The Sons of Tammany," by Mike Carey, in Beyond Rue Morgue, edited by Paul Kane and Charles Prepolec, Titan Books, 2013.

Ever look at something simple and brilliant, like a Post-It Note, or White-Out, and say "why didn't I think of that?"  Well, I have just had two of those Post-It moments.

There have been approximately seven gazillion attempts to rewrite Sherlock Holmes or create new stories about him but as far as I know Kane and Prepolec have come up with a brand new idea: invite the creation of new stories about the first literary sleuth, Edgar Allan Poe's C. Auguste Dupin.  Brilliant idea!  After all, Poe only wrote three.  Plenty of room for more.

Honestly I don't know how good the book turned out, because I have only finished the first story.  But that one is a doozy of a pastiche.

Let's take a moment to define pastiche, shall we?  Some dictionaries say it means the same thing as parody.  They're wrong.  Some people use it to mean a new story about existing characters in imitation of the original; i.e. seven gazillion new Sherlock Holmes stories.  I think there is another name for those: "fan fiction."

I reserve the word pastiche for stories that rethink the original and take a new take on it.  See the British series Sherlock, for example. 

It's possible that the rest of the stories in the book are fan fiction; I don't know.  But Mike Carey has written a clever pastiche.  "The Sons of Tammany" takes place in 1870 when an elderly Dupin visits New York and is shown around by a young cartoonist, the soon-to-be-famous Thomas Nast.  As the title implies, they get involved with the corrupt gang at Tammany Hall -- and also with one of the greatest construction jobs of the ninetheenth century, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Clever idea, and amusing writing.

 Dupin had gotten the hang of summoning cabs now, and that was a terrible power to put in a Frenchman's hands.

Read it.

A Game Played, by Jonathan Rabb

"A Game Played," by Jonathan Rabb, in The Strand Magazine, June-September 2013.

Last week a private eye story, this week spies. 

George Philby is a member of Britain's diplomatic core, stationed in Washington.  He is a quiet, self-effacing man, and his great burden is his name.  Kim Philby was the most famous British traitor in a century, so he is somewhat in the position of a man named Benedict Arnold joining the U.S. Army.  "It made them all think too much, a sudden hesitation in the voice."

And in D.C. it leads to an odd friendship with Jack Crane, an American oil man.  Crane brings Philby out of his shell a bit and the relationship leads to -- well, that would be telling.  But one question this story asks is: Does your name determine your destiny?

I liked this low-key tale better the day after I read it.  Then I read it a second time and liked it more.

The Gypsy Ring, by James L. Ross

"The Gypsy Ring," by James L. Ross, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October 2013.

As I recall, Donald E. Westlake said that the essence of the private eye story can be found in the etymology of the phrase hardboiled dick.  "Hardboiled," meaning a tough person to deal with, comes from the American army during World War I.  "Dick," meaning detective, comes from Quebecois rumrunners during Prohibition.  So the private eye story begins where the newly cynical veterans of the Great War met organized crime spawned by Prohibition.

Meaning, among other things, that the P.I. story dates from an era long past.   So is it too dated to be of interest anymore?  Let's see what James. L. Ross manages to do with it.

The story has a very traditional beginning.  A woman's ring has been stolen.  She wants it back but more importantly, she wants to know if her boyfriend is the thief.


How many motifs of the P.I. story show up om those two sentences?  The female client.  A hidden agenda behind a seemingly simple assignment.

But this is clearly a very modern story.  For one thing the client quite casually explains that the boyfriend is the guy she sees when her fiance is out of town.   And she works for a Wall Street firm that specializes in computerized trades based on miniscule momentary gaps between values of stocks.  Finally, the nameless P.I. hero is also dealing with "my wife's boyfriend."

Not something Sam Spade had to worry about.

Of course, the ring just turns out to be the tip of the iceberg.  There are murders, and theft, and corruption; areas where Mr. Spade would feel quite at home.

The P.I. story seems to be adjusting just fine. 

The Last Sitcom, by Lawrence Maddox

"The Last Sitcom" by Lawrence Maddox, at Beat To A Pulp, 2013.

I remember reading a supposedly-true story (maybe in the I, Anonymous column  of The Stranger?) about someone who found a cell phone on election night 2008.  The owner had been texting and receiving viciously racist jokes.  The finder composed a note in the owner's name confessing that his racism was a disguise for his sexual longing for Black men.  He sent it to everyone on the owner's mailing list except his mother.

I was reminded of this by Maddox's story (freely available, by the way), about a sitcom writer who wanders into a computer cafe in L.A. and discovers that the previous user hadn't signed out.  Turns out he was a member of a band called the Hillbilly Death Squad.

Doug, our alleged hero, decides to amuse himself by sending out some inappropriate emails in the name of the musician.  As you can guess, bad things result.

It's a funny story, a sort of good luck/bad luck roller coaster as Doug and the musicians strive to get the upper hand.  As for who wins, well, it isn't so much that have to find out for yourself, as that you have to decide for yourself.

Dress Blues, by Chirs Muessig

"Dress Blues," by Chris Muessig, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October 2013.

Why did this story, definitely not science fiction, make me think of Isaac Asimov?

Glad you asked.

Some thirty years ago I heard Asimov speak and he said (I am paraphrasing, obviously) that science fiction's great contribution to literature was starting in the middle.  If you think about it, nineteenth century fiction (and earlier) often started by telling you the hero's ancestry and background, describing the town, etc.

If science fiction began that way, you would never get to the story and readers would give up before you were halfway through detailing the planet's history.  So science fiction writers learned to leap in and fill in the details where and when needed.  Readers had to keep up and most of them found that they enjoyed it, I think because it gave them a mystery to solve (Oh, there are different bases on Luna, each founded by a different country as you can tell by their names...)

But one problem for a reviewer is: how much should he or she reveal?  Take Muessig's story.  It's not like there is a a big twist ending but he definitely expects you to sort out the time, place, and circumstance a bit at a time.  And why should I deprive you of the pleasure?

The protagonist is Sergeant Nolan, a Marine sergeant who suddenly finds himself facing multiple crises.  His wife has left him for reasons you will discover.  He has to decide whether to re-enlist for another six-year hitch.  And his boss goes off on extended duty, leaving him as the only Corps member to look after a private who has been arrested for murder.  Worse, that private is a Black man and this story takes place in a time and place where that can be a dangerous place to be -- especially if you are accused of killing a white man.

A fascinating tale, and one that told me a lot I didn't know about its time period.

Borrowed Time, by Doug Allyn

"Borrowed Time," by Doug Allyn, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2013.

The word "prequel" was apparently coined by Anthony Boucher in the 1950s, but I first heard it twenty years later when someone had the unfortunate idea of making a movie about Butch and Sundance before things started to get messy for them.

Prequels are one of those ideas that tend to sound better than they turn out.  (Cough, cough, Star Wars)  But as always the proof is in the pudding.

This story is a prequel to "Wood Smoke Boys," which made a lot of best-of lists last year, including mine.  "Boys" is about  Dylan LaCrosse, a cop in the north territory of Michigan.  In the present story we learn about the circumstances that caused him to leave the Detroit Police Department and retreat back to his home turf in the north.

And the circumstances involve taking a bullet in the head in the middle of the kind of hellish cop's nightmare in which there can be no good action to take.  LaCrosse survives the injury and is booted out of the force.  Now to survive he has to deal with crooked cops and missing money.

A very satisfactory prequel.  Maybe George Lucas should have hired Doug Allyn.

The Hunting Party, by Tony Richards

"The Hunting Party," by Tony Richards, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October 2013.

Editor Linda Landrigan has been doing something risky in AHMM in the last couple of years and I haven't seen anyone else mention it.  She has occasionally published science fiction mysteries.

The usual thinking is that mystery fans don't want to read science fiction.  I think it goes back to the idea that you can't have a fair-play mystery if the solution depends on the detective knowing that the Model K3 ray guy has a defenerator switch on the left side, not the right, or who was elected emperor in 2994.  Of course, that's nonsense; a fair-play set in the present or past can be just as unfair. 

Besides, most mystery stories today are not traditional fair-play, anyway.


Which is also true of Richards' tale.  It is (at least) the second story about Lieutenant Abel Enetame, a cop in Federated Africa, a continent that has made tremendous gains over today's gloomy situation.  Unfortunately there are some fanatics who want to force a return to the good old days of tribal violence. 

The leader of this group, Chief Manuza, appeared in the first story.  Now he is more dangerous because he has an ally,  a Nobel Prize-winning physicist named Kanai. 

"There is a saying in the scientific world," Mweru told me.  "Einstein stood on the shoulders of others.  Kanai stood on the shoulders of Einstein...and then just floated off into thin air."

Such a man could give Manuza's rebels a dangerous weapon in their fight against progress.  But weapons can be dangerous in more ways than one as we learn in the stories very satisfying ending.

The Samsa File, by Jim Weikart

"The Samsa File," by Jim Weikart, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September 2013.

I wonder what percentage of AHMM's readers got a few pages into this story and said "What the hell?"  Maybe five percent?  Ten?

I, on the other hand, eat this sort of thing up.

Unless you are in that undefined percentage, the title should give a good hint as to what you are in for.  Havel, a police detective in present-day Prague is assigned to investigate the apparent murder by poisoning of a young man named Gregor Samsa.  Except - surprise! - Gregor had somehow transformed into a giant cockroach.

This is sort of reverse steampunk, transforming a Victorian plot -- Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, of course -- into the modern era, and a modern genre, the police procedural.  Weikart even offers something that Kafka had no interest in, an explanation for Samsa's transformation. 

Of all the stories I have read so far this year, this one is probably the one I most wish I had written.

Departmental Issue, by John H. Dirckx

"

Departmental Issue," by John H. Dirckx, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September 2013.

For many  years John H. Dirckx has been publishing stories about Cyrus Auburn, a police detective in what I had thought was an unnamed city.  In this one it appears to be Cleveland.  Who knew?

The stories tend to be pretty straight police procedurals, without a lot of personal side trips, but in this case Auburn, newly promoted to lieutenant is feeling a certain amount of paranoia.  His old boss asks him to take on a case too ticklish to share with anyone else in the department: a custodian fell to his death from the roof of skyscraper, leaving behind a former- police department laptop that  was sold to someone at an auction.  Is a cop the killer?

This story lacks one of my favorite things about Dirckx's stories: the interaction between all the regulars.  Since Auburn is on his own we get much less of his co-workers than usual.  But the other wonderful characteristic is Dirckx's imaginative writing style.  Consider: how can you describe a pile of dirt on the floor and make it interesting?

A pile of refuse had been swept into a corner, where it skulked in the lee of a wide broomleaning against the wall.

"Skulked in the lee."  Lovely.

Some more examples:

Rober's wallet was as devoid of interest as a wet paper towel, and his cell phone had come out of the fall with an incurable case of amnesia.

Amid an atmosphere thick with the scent of scorched grease and freshly chopped onions, white-capped and white-aproned servers of both genders took orders, delivered food and drink, and bussed tables with unflagging lethargy.