Killers and thieves in our midst try to stay undetected, whether clinging to shadows or hiding in plain sight. The tales in this issue feature intrepid, if sometimes accidental, sleuths who uncover what’s hidden and unmask the villains in surprising and entertaining ways.
Emily Devenport’s heroine Katie Thomas runs out of her condo in her pajamas because she knows a serial killer is stalking her, but her explanation to the police for how she knows beggars belief in “10,432 Serial Killers (in Hell)”. The late B. K. Stevens was a master craftsman of short fiction; in her story “One-Day Pass,” a ghost has one shot to reveal the truth and set things straight. Artist Tamar Gillespie brings her powers of keen observation to the painting of a portrait of three spoiled Pomeranians, which happen to belong to celebrity psychiatrists specializing in the criminal mind, in John C. Boland’s “The Three Dog Problem.” A laid-off copyeditor continues to review her former employer’s website, where she discovers some devastating information hidden in the errors in “Bothering with the Details” by Dayle A. Dermatis. Leslie Budewitz brings us a tale of Stagecoach Mary, the observant and crafty servant to the Ursaline sisters in the Montana Territory in “All God’s Sparrows.”
A ho-hum date at a corny mystery dinner gets interesting when one of the guests disappears in Tara Laskowski’s “The Case of the Vanishing Professor.” At another tense dinner, Deborah Lacy’s protagonist’s thoughts turn to “Taking Care.” Steve Liskow goes deep into the workings of a pickle packaging plant with “The Girl in the Red Bandana.” The death of a feline at the Temple of Bast in ancient Alexandria is a bad omen for Magistrate Ovid, who must solve the mystery before his friend, the inventor Heron, is put to death in “The Worth of Felines” by Thomas K. Carpenter. The provenance of a portrait of Saint Hedwig is at the heart of a puzzle that faces Abbot Joseph and Brother Leo in Marianne Wilski Strong’s new story, “The Abbot and the Garnets.” The heroine of Jane K. Cleland’s “I am a Proud American” discovers a mystery in the identity of her father. And John H. Dirckx returns with another solid procedural set at a perennial summer ritual in “Blowout at the Carnival.” Meanwhile, find out how crime lurks in the everyday aisles of the grocery store, in Neil Schofield’s “Shopping for Fun and Profit.”
In addition to Robert C. Hahn’s book reviews in our Booked & Printed column, and Dying Words, a challenging acrostic by Arlene Fisher, this issue’s features include the debut of a new puzzle, Mixed-Up Sleuths, anagram fun for mystery mavens from Mark Lagasse. We also bring you a special Mystery Classic: Shelly Dickson Carr introduces a short story by her mother Julia McNiven, “Death at Devil’s Hole,” originally published in 1974.
Trace Evidence 