Trace Evidence

Crime may be personal, but it occurs within the context of social or cultural frictions that give each criminal act its particular character. Several of this month’s stories arise from the stresses of such cultural frictions.

In our cover story, Martin Limón introduces a new series character, Il Yong, an American soldier turned freelance security specialist who operates in the highly contested cultural zone where North Korea and China operate. Two stories are set amidst the ideological frictions of the Cold War: Terrie Farley Moran’s “On Target” and John C. Boland’s “Marley’s Lover.” And the generational frictions of the sixties drive “A Crown of Thorns” by David Edgerley Gates, set on the campus of the University of New Mexico. In this issue we also welcome the return of some favorite characters: Madame Selina and her young assistant Nip confront a

menacing apparition in Janice Law’s “The Ghostly Fireman,” Eureka Kilburn as a teen has a sense for what’s really going down in a hot environment in Jay Carey’s “We Are All Accomplices,” and those big-hearted fixers Akin and Jones zero in on scam artists in Dan Warthman’s “Mr. Smartphone.”

This month’s friction fiction will warm you in the cold season.

The stories in this month’s issue should appeal to discerning palates. In B. K. Stevens’s “A Joy Forever,” unhappily married Gwen becomes a wonderful cook, with a specialty in comfort food. What could be wrong with that? While for more exotic fare, readers (and others) should beware the coconuts in Susan Oleksiw’s “Perfect in Every Way.” (Check out Susan’s comment’s about the March issue on her blog One Writer’s World.)

Meanwhile, nineteenth-century ship captain Eban Hale and his sharp-eyed wife Lucinda deal with an unsavory trading partner during a voyage through Indonesia in Donald Moffitt’s “The Color of Gold.” A war-scarred veteran is further destabilized on the set of a Cold War-era horror film in Joseph S. Walker’s “Pill Bug.” An apparition in the London fog is all wrong in Tony Richards’s “The Woman in Brown,” but it’s years before anyone understands why. Mystery writer Ben Clark shows he knows a thing or two about plotting murder in J. A. Moser’s “Blueprint.”

For our mystery classic this month, Les Blatt introduces us to Average Jones in “Red Dot.” Average Jones investigates fraudulent ads—surely a hero for our own times.

Bon appetit!

It is with sadness that I report the death of Donald Moffitt, who died Wednesday, December 10, in Maine at the age of 83. Best known for his science fiction novels, Mr. Moffitt came late in his career to our pages with his story “Feat of Clay,” set in ancient Sumeria, which we published in the September 2008 issue. A third story in this series will be published in 2015 in our pages. In addition, he published a series of stories featuring nineteenth century seafarers Eban and Lucinda Hale, the next of which will appear in our March 2015 issue. Both series were richly imagined and enlivened by Don Moffitt’s in-depth historical research. He was a pleasure to work with, and I’m so very glad he gave us a chance with his stories.