"Remembering Tally" by John M. Floyd

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January-February 2009, p. 102–109

At what his campaign calls their "blue-collar" office, short and shady gubernatorial frontrunner J. Talmadge "Tally" Byrd takes a phone call that turns out to be a bomb threat. The bomber gives Tally a character-defining choice—tell everyone in the office about the bomb, or save only himself—saying he has three minutes left.

Real politicians are seldom this starkly put to the test, and their bad decisions don't come back to bite them quickly enough for my taste, so I'm grateful all that does happen in this story.

Multiple Derringer Award winner John M. Floyd currently blogs at SleuthSayers.

NBS Special Report: Flash and Bang: A Short Mystery Fiction Society Anthology

Cover ©2015 Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover design by Ginny Glass

The Short Mystery Fiction Society formed in 1996 to promote mystery & crime short fiction. Graham, Bill, Steven, and I are members.

On October 8, Untreed Reads published the Society's first member anthology, Flash and Bang, in paperback and ebook.

SMFS member and Untreed Reads editor-in-chief Jay Hartman called for unpublished mystery, suspense, or thriller stories containing either a "flash" or a "bang".

Limiting submissions to one flash (300–1,000 words) and one short (1,500–3,000 words) per member, Jay received more than 300.

His selection of 19 stories ranges from historical to contemporary, cozy to hardboiled, amateur and animal sleuth to police and private detective:

• "The Conflagration at the Nameless Cotton Gin" by Bobbi A. Chukran
• "The Perfect Crime" by Herschel Cozine
• "Don't Let the Cop into the House" by O'Neil De Noux
• "Fireworks" by P.A. De Voe
• "Rosie's Choice" by John M. Floyd
• "The Wrong Girl" by Barb Goffman
• "Murder on Elm Street" by Su Kopil
• "Silent Measures" by B.V. Lawson
• "Don't Be Cruel" by JoAnne Lucas
• "A Simple Job" by Andrew MacRae
• "Arthur" by Sandra Murphy
• "Thor's Breath" by Suzanne Berube Rorhus
• "Beautiful Killer" by Judy Penz Sheluk
• "A Day Like No Other" by Walter A.P. Soethoudt (translated by Willem Verhulst)
• "The Raymond Chandler Con" by Earl Staggs
• "The Bag Lady" by Laurie Stevens
• "Fractured Memories" by Julie Tollefson
• "The Fruit of Thy Loins" by Albert Tucher
• "Sierra Noir" by Tim Wohlforth

Through October 31, Flash and Bang is part of Untreed Reads 30% Off sale on mystery and horror titles.

NBS Special Report: 2007 Derringer Winners

As announced by Awards coordinator Jeanne Edna Thelwell:

FLASH STORY: "Vigilante" by Barry Ergang (Summer 2006, Mysterical-E)

SHORT-SHORT STORY - We have a tie:

"Four For Dinner" by John M. Floyd (Seven by Seven)

AND

Elena Speaks of the City, Under Siege" by Steven Torres (September/October 2006, Crimespree Magazine)

MID-LENGTH STORY - "Cranked" by Bill Crider (Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir)

LONGER SHORT STORY - "Strictly Business" by Julie Hyzy (These Guns for Hire)


Congratulations, Steven, Bill, Barry, John, and Julie.

"Four for Dinner" by John M. Floyd

From: Seven By Seven, ed. Tony Burton, Wolfmont Publishing, 2006.

In this 2007 Derringer-winning story from a flash fiction anthology based on the Seven Deadly Sins, Carolyn Hendon receives a phone call from a stranger claiming to have kidnapped her husband. The stranger goes on to describe her husband's car and license plate, but Mrs. Hendon is certain her husband is home. When the stranger warns he isn't bluffing, he will kill her husband, Carolyn tells him to go ahead and hangs up.

A well-executed take on mistaken identities, with an ending I didn't guess.