"The Final Final" by Jerry Kennealy

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine September/October 2023, p. 111–117

In 1970, San Francisco police inspector Johnny O'Rorke is on leave recuperating from a gunshot wound. Paralyzed real estate tycoon David Lambert hires O'Rorke to tail his wife Katie, whose behavior has recently changed. Lamenting his physical predicament, the result of a fall mountain-climbing with Katie, David has no ill will toward his wife. He simply wants to know if "she's okay."

Following her for two days, O'Rorke takes a brief chance to speak with Katie, not betraying David's concern, yet finding himself unable to sway her from her own perilous plans.

"The Final Final" very finely focuses on the Lamberts' feelings of futility and what they do in response, then compounds their feelings with O'Rorke's and readers' by extension. Powerful and haunting.

"Tag, You're Dead" by John Lutz

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, May/June 2021, p. 34-39

Pleased to receive the latest issues of AHMM and EQMM wrapped in protective plastic, I had to read the AHMM cover story first, the final bow for soft-boiled St. Louis P.I. Alo Nudger, author John Lutz having died January 9, aged 81.

"Tag, You're Dead" finds Nudger forced out of his office, the rent tripled. He's commiserating with Danny, who has upscaled his doughnut shop to offset the rent increase, when they witness the discovery of a dead body believed to be that of a famous street artist.

As editor Linda Landrigan mentions in the issue's intro, the story shines laying out elements I only later realized were clues. Rest in peace, Mr. Lutz.

Christmas in July at Smashwords

Cover ©2015 Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover design by Ginny Glass

In 1996, members of the listserv shortmystery-l renamed it the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Changing hosts with the times, it remains a free discussion promoting the form. Many NBS reviewers are members.

In October 2015, Untreed Reads published the first Society member anthology, Flash and Bang, featuring nineteen original stories. This whole month, the Flash and Bang ebook is part of Smashwords' Christmas in July sale. Normally $4.99, coupon code SSW50 makes it $2.50.

If you prefer a physical book, Untreed Reads president and Society member Jay Hartman adds the paperback and large-print paperback of Flash and Bang are 15% off retail price every day when purchased directly from Untreed.

Hope you enjoy, spread the word, and pave the way for further anthologies.

"Active Shooter" by Jack Bunker

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2020, p. 86–88

Despite a bullet costing him the power of speech, the narrator conveys by internal monologue he's been mistaken for the active shooter of the title. An unarmed former assistant football coach, he's innocently returned to the school that fired him to pick up his daughter for the weekend. He continues casting himself as the central victim of a compelling noir, but we can't buy his narrative as the whole truth. A few clues show the story isn't all about him.

"None of This Is on the Map" by Richie Narvaez

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November/December 2019, p. 59-69

Weightlifter Eulogio Vega, computer tech for an international PI firm, is grieving the deaths of his parents when he takes on a freelance case from Brooklyn congresswoman Camilla Santiago to find her husband. Vega easily traces a flight the husband booked to Puerto Rico. Further locating and bringing him back prove more difficult with Hurricane Maria's devastation and Vega's reluctance to send off his parents' ashes.

I've known Richie Narvaez since 2006, when I submitted to his website Asinine Poetry. We share many interests including crime fiction, comic books, and Star Trek. As fiction editor of The Thrilling Detective Web Site, I helped published a 2007 Vega story, "El Bohemio", which is now available in the ebook collection Roachkiller and Other Stories.

I'm glad to spread the word about Richie's EQMM debut. I particularly appreciate its depiction of the hurricane's aftermath and Vega's personal stake in traveling to Puerto Rico.

"Left for Dead" by S.J. Rozan

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2019, p. 31–33

This deceptively short story offers a full picture of nine-year-old dyslexic Joey, who's lived with his loving Aunt Amy and abusive Uncle Ted for three years, since his mother's death. Enhancing the picture, Rozan describes strategies Joey has been taught to cope with dyslexia, strategies kept secret from Uncle Ted.

Perhaps the twist, this isn't a story of Joey getting revenge on Ted. Ted causes his own demise through lack of knowlege, yet there's no cosmic justice, either. Never learning how wrong he is, Ted's last, fatal act is in spite of Joey. Short but by no means simple.

Also this summer, Rozan returned to her Lydia Chin and Bill Smith P.I. series with Paper Son from Pegasus Books.

"Boys Will Be Boys" by Marilyn Todd

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May/June 2019, p. 191-92

You may have noticed I'm a fan of very short stories. The shorter the story, the more punch each word packs. I'm also a fan of dialogue, and Marilyn Todd's "Boys Will Be Boys" is all dialogue without attribution, presenting David Andrew Tyler and his domineering mum in slices of life, a macabre Mother's Day tale, if you will.

"Bhut Jolokia" by Rob Hart

Medium Short, March 18, 2016

Though this story is available online, I read it in print as part of Take-Out and Other Tales of Culinary Crime, Rob Hart's just-published collection from Polis Books, because the intersection of food and crime fiction has intrigued me since the first Spenser book I read in 1993.

Many of Hart's stories bridge the distance between protagonist and reader with techniques such as present-tense prose. "Bhut Jolokia" combines present tense prose and second person voice, as if the reader is the protagonist being addressed. I found it eerily effective, Hart implicating "you" directly in a peppery plot against egregious office lunch thief Scott Olson.

Hearing Rob read at a Noir at the Bar event in Manhattan moved me to buy his first novel, New Yorked. Don't be surprised if "Bhut Jolokia" makes you hungry for Take-Out.

"Flight" by Kris Calvin

Unloaded Vol. 2: More Crime Writers Writing Without Guns, ed. Eric Beetner, Down & Out Books, 2018, p. 119–127

From Down & Out's second anthology benefiting States United to Prevent Gun Violence comes the story of Hannah, anxious to catch a flight with baby Sam in tow. As they face each each hurdle of airport security, more of their background is revealed, and while guns don't factor, but what does is horrific in its own right. I rooted for their escape. Well told by child advocate Calvin.

"Lessons" by Jeremiah Healy

Private Eyes ed. Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, Signet, February 1998, p. 294–314.

For years, the day after Labor Day was traditionally my first day of school. Apropos of that, this story finds the late Jeremiah Healy's Boston P.I., John Francis Cuddy, hired by cancer-stricken World War II veteran-turned-teacher Joseph Vogel to find his thirty-five year-old son, Keith.

After hearing Joseph's other children have died, Cuddy takes him at his word he wants to make amends with Keith before it's too late. Cuddy discovers Keith is a drug dealer and reluctantly tells Joseph, who delivers a surprise of his own.

"Maui: The Road to Hana" by G.M. Malliet

G.M. Malliet
photo by Joe Henson

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, September-October 2018, p. 125-133

Thinking of Hawaii as Hurricane Lane approaches the islands, I read G.M. Malliet's latest EQMM story having ridden along the titular, twisty road.

The protagonist and her husband, retiring executive Geoff, book the trip partly to relieve Geoff's stress and partly to relive the last time they drove the road, on their honeymoon.

Readers get an early hint that Geoff's wife may intend to kill him, but she must keep the vacation pace—not appear in a rush—allowing Malliet to evoke the atmosphere and local color of Maui and the Road to Hana.

"The Last Man I Killed" by Margaret Maron

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2018, p. 101-103

Reading the narrator's history of murder in her disarming, evasive tone, it's easy to picture her dodging suspicion, making each kill seem either an accident or suicide. Even the story's title deceives. Well done by Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Maron.

"Post No Bulls" by Marvin Kaye

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2018, p. 73–84

In this new Rex Stout pastiche by Wolfe Pack charter member Marvin Kaye, the corpse of widely-despised police lieutenant George Rowcliff is FedExed to Nero Wolfe's New York brownstone, addressed to his legman, Archie Goodwin. Offended, gourmand genius detective Wolfe vows to identify who sent the body as well as who killed Rowcliff.

Stout's stories of Wolfe, Archie, and friends spanned from 1934 to 1975. Though the world changed around them, the company of characters didn't age, making them adaptable to generation after generation of fans. For example, nods to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan set "Post No Bills" in the late 1990s.

"Hotel Story" by Sigrid Nunez

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2018, p. 46

The narrator of Sigrid Nunez's one-page story piques readers' curiosity about the guests staying in rooms above, below, and to either side of them at hotels. Though almost every paragraph recounts an experience at a different hotel, the story as a whole works to unsettling effect, culminating with the narrator seeing a murder victim wheeled past her.

Food for thought if you're on or planning a vacation, this one's good for a chill.

"A Time of Fury" by Bill Pronzini

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May/June 2018, p. 149-154

This story opens in the aftermath of estranged father narrator Jordan Cameron finding his recently returned daughter Andrea has slit her wrists in the bath. Cameron pieces together what he can about Andrea's broken marriage and drives across the country determined to kill her controlling ex-husband, whom he blames for Andrea's death.

The man isn't at all as Cameron expected, nor is his account of the marriage. On one hand, I had the same difficulty accepting the ex's account as the truth. On the other, that twist was the only way the story could surprise.

The outcome left me not quite satisfied, wondering what outcome I would've preferred, and why—all buttons Pronzini means to push.

"Jack Webb's Star" by Lee Goldberg

Three Ways to Die, Amazon Createspace, 2010

During a break from traffic school near Jack Webb's Hollywood Walk of Fame star, struggling writer Kevin Dangler mentions his actress wife Carly's infatuation with Webb to a classmate, ex-con Titus Watkins. Titus suggests stealing Webb's star as a bold gesture to Carly. At first, Kevin can't believe they'd get away with it, but Titus, in the construction business, assures him they can. Hoping to save his marriage, Kevin throws in, and things only get wilder from there.

I got to know Lee Goldberg as a fellow fan of Robert B. Parker's Spenser. Lee got his start in television writing with the Spenser: For Hire episode "If You Knew Sammy", in which Spenser is roped into protecting writer Sammy Backlin (Sal Viscuso). "Jack Webb's Star", originally written for Robert J. Randisi's 2007 Hollywood and Crime anthology, similarly starts with the very ordinary and heightens events from there. You may not believe everything Kevin gets away with, but you may find following him enjoyable enough, as I did, that you willingly suspend disbelief.

Lee has had successful runs writing the Diagnosis: Murder and Monk tie-in novels as well as creating the Nicolas Fox/Kate O'Hare series with Janet Evanovich. His latest book is the Amazon.com bestseller True Fiction, about a thriller novelist who finds himself in the middle of a globe-trotting plot when one of his nightmare scenarios really happens.

"Tigers and Flies" by Cath Staincliffe

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March-April 2018, p. 176-181

Staincliffe gives readers a brief, yet engrossing and suspenseful look at a team of prison medics in China tasked with operating on organ donors on death row.

The suspense is particularly heightened when we learn one of the medics is selling organs on the side. This doctor's situation highlights the cultural differences between East and West. In the West, the doctor would have wealth and status. In China, not so.

"The Reindeer Clue" by Edward D. Hoch

The Misadventures of Ellery Queen ed. Josh Pachter and Dale C. Andrews, p. 73–77

Two days before Christmas, Ellery Queen and his father, Inspector Richard Queen, are visiting the Children's Zoo when they are asked to help find out who murdered gossip columnist-turned-blackmailer Casey Sturgess, whose body is found in the reindeer pen.

With one woman and two men present as suspects, Ellery identifies the killer from dabs of Sturgess's blood left on a placard containing lines from Clement Clarke Moore's poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas".

Carla Coupe of publisher Wildside Press sent me a review copy of this March 2018 anthology of Queen pastiches and parodies. First published in The National Inquirer in 1975 with Ellery Queen's byline, "The Reindeer Clue" was for years thought to be the last story written by the original authors, a feat I'm not surprised master Ed Hoch pulled off.

"The Public Hero" by Robert S. Levinson

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January-February 2018, p. 168-177

Linda Landrigan of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Janet Rudolph of Mystery Readers International spread the word that Los Angeles reporter, public relations executive, producer, and crime fiction writer Robert S. Levinson died March 13 from pneumonia.

Having enjoyed Bob's Neil Gulliver & Stevie Marriner novels, I got to know him as a fellow member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, where his stories received three Derringer Award nominations and one win.

His most recent EQMM story follows 1979 Hollywood P.I. Rufus Reed, his quick shooting having foiled a bank robbery. Notoriety gets him hired as security for Sky Diver and the Sky Dwellers. He's with the band when an armed intruder gets to them, charging plagiarism. Though that incident lands Rufus in the hospital, he's approached by a man who offers to make him the subject of a movie.

Like much of Bob's fiction, "The Public Hero" is steeped in Hollywood lore. Its outcome particularly shows that even the savviest person can be taken with such glamorous promise.

"The Lighthouse and the Lamp" by William Dylan Powell

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January-February 2018, p. 31–42

William Dylan Powell

Unlicensed Corpus Christi, Texas P.I. Billy is intrigued when his elderly friend Clarabelle Mayhew claims to have a true-to-legend, wish-granting magic lamp. Despite Clarabelle's certainty her wishes came true by magic—including $1 million cash on her doorstep—Billy remains skeptical. He talks Clarabelle into letting him observe covertly when she makes her next wish.

Though, as Billy suspects, there's no magic involved, "The Lighthouse and the Lamp" stands out to me because there's no crime, either, but quite a mystery.