Passed by Kieran Shea

Stories by Kieran Shea are bound to be well written and hard edged, so he's fast becoming one of those writers that can get me to spring for a copy of a magazine or open up one of the e-zines. His story "Passed" is in the current iteration of Plots with Guns, and it is well worth the read.

In it, a son gets a call from his death-row dwelling father in the hour before the needle. The son, a full grown man now, only has bad memories and no real desire to talk with his daddy, but then the request the father makes is a simple favor and, well, it is in his very last hour: pick up and deliver some funeral clothes.

The story has a lot of atmosphere and even though I kind of wished for a sligthly different ending, that might just be "Moral-me" talking. Anyway, check it out.

Mr. Alibi by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is not known to me personally, but I've admired her career for a while. She writes romance, sci-fi and mystery at an award winning caliber, and her list of credits is amazing. Take a look.

The current issue of EQMM has one of her stories, and I think it is the best PI story I've read in a while. It's called Mr. Alibi and concerns a female PI who is in a bar waiting for a no-show client when she's approached by a man who wants her to alibi him for the night before when he claims to have murdered his wife. At first she thinks he's just using a pick-up line or trying to be funny, but doubts creep in and what follows is a mix of false identities, scams, and Hollywood history.

It's an engrossing story and the legwork the PI goes through felt real. Overall, a great read.