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The Finest in Crime and Suspense Short Fiction

Current Issue Highlights

Veil of Deception

A key element to the success of both a crime and a mystery story is misdirection: The criminal attempts to cast suspicion on others, the writer seeks to keep the reader guessing whodunit. In this issue we once again gather together tales that are anything but straight and narrow, but we won’t lead you astray in your pursuit of pleasurable reading.

In our lead story this issue, Sherlock Holmes’s chronicler, Dr. John Watson, is traveling in north Wales for the opening of the Snowdon Mountain Railway when a celebrated mountain climber, obscured by the thick mists, falls to his death in “The Mists of Yr Wyddfa” by James Tipton. Winter weather is just one enemy a grandfather encounters when he stops to aid a young motorist in trouble on an isolated Canadian highway in Marcelle Dubé’s story “The Boy.” A woman struggling to meet the needs of her family confronts the fog of dementia when her mother is visited by a confused stranger in “4th Floor Alice” by Mary Angela Honerman. Avaricious televangelists are no match for the exploits of a clever P.I. and his crew in “For Lydia” by James A. Hearn. In John F. Dobbyn’s story “The Moment of Truth,” the mists clear from a young bullfighter’s eyes when he learns the truth of his idol’s death in the ring. When the smoke clears, a fatal workplace mishap nudges a police detective’s memory in “Hindsight” by Chris Muessig.

Bob Tippee’s procedural pairs a crusty detective used to working alone with a rookie with some new ideas in “Ancillaries.” Ecuadoran detective Ernesto Guillén takes on a family problem for the mayor in “La Hermana del Alcade” by Tom Larsen. National treasures are at stake in Mark Thielman’s caper “Sfortuna,” set in Venice.

A taciturn young girl is abandoned in a South India hotel in “Murder All Sewn Up,” but Susan Oleksiw’s curious photographer Anita Ray and proprietor Auntie Meena find the clues that lead to the girl’s family. Mystery writer Shanks attends his college reunion and runs into someone claiming to be the inspiration for his series character in “Shanks’s Role Model” by Robert Lopresti. A young orphan receives a strange set of objects after his Parisian card-sharp foster mother unexpectedly commits suicide in “Strays” by Tim Burke.

In all thirteen mysterious tales to lead you into, and out of, the fog.

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FICTION

The Moment of Truth
by John F. Dobbyn 

I remember waking in a drench of sweat, fear, and chills. That’s not unusual. It was Sunday morning. I slipped into the routine that was more like a sacred ritual to drive away the demons. Breakfast in my hotel room alone. A call from my manager, Miguel, to see that I could push through the fear yet another Sunday.

It was time to dress. My faithful Angelito appeared to see that every fold of my “suit of lights” was aligned to perfection.

Then a prayer to the Mother of God before the small icon in a tiny side room. READ MORE


4th Floor Alice
by Mary Angela Honerman

A thick fog settled into the cracks of the city, softening the angles of strip malls and superstores until Kate could see beyond the town of fifty thousand and into the deep fields of South Dakota’s prairie. March hoarfrost covered the stiff brown stubble, making the bare fields appear beautiful. They’d looked this way for a hundred years and would look the same in a hundred more. Time couldn’t touch the enduring flatness of the Northern Plains. A single tree, out of place in the vacant skyline, stood watch over the great expanse, its branches as tangled as the stories Kate’s mother, Elenor, recounted. READ MORE

DEPARTMENTS

Booked & Printed
by Laurel Flores Fantauzzo

Perhaps one of the most uncomfortable, defining attributes and inevitabilities of childhood is helplessness. In early development, children can rarely escape the intentions, machinations, and decisions of adults. When children suffer evil abuses, the aftereffects map themselves on adulthood in a myriad of formative ways. The trauma of violence in childhood can be chaotic, strengthening, or corrupting. Children can encounter rescue, too, in the form of safe adults who respect their needs, modeling a world in which the pain of victimhood is not absolute, and healing and empowerment stay possible. This issue, Booked and Printed examines protagonists whose childhood wounds extend far into the future, pulling them between poles of safety and criminality, restoration and perpetration. READ MORE


Mysterious Photograph

We give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the photograph provided in each issue. The story will be printed in a future issue. READ THIS ISSUE’S WINNING STORY


Dying Words
Acrostic puzzle by Arlene Fisher

Solve the clues to reveal an interesting observation about an author and their work! Shh! Puzzle updated with every new issue. CURRENT ISSUE’S PUZZLE


Scrambled Maitland
by Mark Lagasse

Unscramble the letters of each numbered entry to spell the name of a famous sleuth. MOST RECENT PUZZLE

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