Current Issue Highlights
Criminal Personas
Detection necessarily implies deception. Criminals may deceive both to commit their crimes and to cover them up afterwards. And occasionally investigators themselves will resort to duplicitous behavior in order to bring perpetrators to justice. This issue’s stories offer some master classes in disguise, deception, and misdirection.
In “Masquerade” by Pat Black, a Halloween party is the perfect setting for a killer to hide in plain sight. In “The Final Was Murder” by John H. Dirckx, an educational skit at a police training academy goes awry when a student in the audience is shot. And Rick Peters looks into why a fellow photographer was murdered and a studio ransacked in Floyd Sullivan’s “Cover Shot.”
A good story is a lifesaver when a thief jumps into a woman’s car and demands that she drive in Stan Dryer’s “Mary-Elizabeth, Killing Machine.” Recovering from an attack that left her with a head injury, a woman remembers bit-by-bit the story her husband told her about being mugged that morning in Jane Pendjiky’s “The Fall.” A couple takes a hike in the wilderness (supposedly) to rekindle their relationship in Dave Zeltserman’s “The Water Bottle.” An alibi is replayed over and over in a man’s mind in Wayne J. Gardiner’s “You Can Sleep When You’re an Old Man.”
After a Mob boss is killed, the heir to the family enterprise must contend with his clever, bitter sisters in Stephen W. Herring’s “The Family Man.” A hitman hides his true profession from his teen assistant in “Recidivism,” the latest in this series by R.T. Lawton dealing with family surrogates. A retired cop goes to great lengths to protect the young family next door from a local bully in “Of Stroganoff and Jerry Cans” by Marcelle Dubé. As a young man, John Watson, the future chronicler of Sherlock Holmes’s adventures, travels to wartime Paris to free a friend who’s been imprisoned for murder in “The Besieged City” by James Tipton. And a creepy patron catches the attention of a theater attendant after a body is found when the lights come up in “Midnight Movie” by James Van Pelt.
Fifteen tricky tales of deceptive people, but we won’t lie—our goal is to keep you entertained.
FICTION
Midnight Movie
by James Van Pelt
The Creep bought a ticket for the Friday night midnight movie five minutes before the trailers started. Long beige trench coat. Beige fedora. Dark pants and shoes. He wore the hat low and covered his eyes with black-rimmed sunglasses. How he could see through them at midnight was beyond me, and since he’d been coming for the last year, when I checked the theater on the half hour, he still wore them. The Creep is not his name. We don’t know who he is, but Louise started calling him that the first time he came in, and the tag stuck. I’m glad to see him though, after last week’s murder.
No concession stand for The Creep. He strode down the hallway to the theater with his hands in his pockets. READ MORE
Roses for Beth
by Bob Williamson
“You’re right. This picture was taken in nineteen sixty-two. I think it was March. April? That’s my father’s sixty-two Ford Galaxie. It was the only new car we ever bought.” I turned the faded black and white photo around so the two detectives could see it better. “We bought it at Galpin Ford in Encino. My mother didn’t like new cars; she always said that you were wasting your money when you drove a new car off the lot.”
“Would you like some coffee?” asked Detective Woodward, a tall muscular man with a wide jaw and blond hair. READ MORE
DEPARTMENTS
Booked & Printed
by Laurel Flores Fantauzzo
To escape is a goal that, paradoxically, binds criminals and victims alike. Criminals scheme to flee from accountability, or to break free from prison walls. Escaping is what potential victims attempt, too, in order to evade the clutches of a fearsome perpetrator, or to break free from the circumstances of danger and deprivation formed by larger forces. This month, Booked and Printed visits protagonists engaged in the attempt to make a pivotal getaway, be they perpetrators or innocents. READ MORE
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 ladies
by Mark Lagasse
Unscramble the letters of each numbered entry to spell the name of a famous sleuth. MOST RECENT PUZZLE