Trace Evidence

Not too long ago I attended the Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, Maryland, where the lovers of cozy mysteries meet once a year. I always enjoy my time there catching up with old friends and discovering what new books are out. This time around I had the pleasure of moderating the “Make It Snappy” panel, where I had a chance to probe the nominees for the Agatha award for Best Short Story about the finer points of writing short fiction.

Kathy Lynn Emerson, Linda Landrigan, Barb Goffman, Art Taylor, Edith Maxwell

Malice also gave me a chance to meet up with and record a new podcast with Leslie Budewitz, who lives in Montana. Leslie read her 2006 story “The End of the Line,” and after that we talked about her inspiration for the story, how she manages two culinary series, and her non-fiction book, Books, Crooks and Counselors, which is a must-have legal reference for mystery writers. Continue reading →

A criminal act is never an isolated event: There are always consequences. Victims want vengeance; detectives want truth; citizens want justice.

In Marianne Wilski Strong’s “The Breaker,” an old coal processing plant is haunted—a consequence of the exploitative treatment of its workers, including children. In Brian Tobin’s “Entwined,” a moment’s distraction leads to the death of a professor, a man who touched many lives. A history of brutality entangles young lovers and parents alike in William Dylan Powell’s dark family drama “Sewing on Sunday.” And Elizabeth Zelvin’s nuanced “The Man in the Dick Tracy Hat,” set in the Cold War fifties, examines the results of a decision to become a traitor of sorts.

In other stories, Key West P.I. Megan Trevor boards a dowdy gambling cruise to find out where the money is leaking out in John C. Boland’s “Her Father’s Daughter.” Bob Tippee brings us a tale of the corporate snares that await the young and ambitious in “The PLT.” And for our Mystery Classic this month, Evan Lewis introduces us to a hardworking journalist from another era in Richard Sale’s “Flash!”

But in all these stories, the intended consequence is reading pleasure.

Some investigators and criminals are blessed with brains and nerve, some with sheer dumb luck. How else to explain the ability of hapless housebreakers Yarnell and Beaumont, in R. T. Lawton’s holiday burglar series, to dig themselves out of impossible situations—literally so in “Groundhog Day”—albeit none the wiser, or richer? And luck also serves efficiency-obsessed industrial engineer Vi Celucci, in Robert Mangeot’s “Two Bad Hamiltons and a Hirsute Jackson,” when it sends some counterfeit bills her way, prompting her to trace their source.

Luck, or fate, detours Brian Ellis on his way to a regional sales meeting, but the film buff handles the resulting situation with aplomb, and a few good lines, in John M. Floyd’s “Dreamland.” The young Chinese clerk called Rabbit feels he has encountered some bad luck when a professional thief calling in his markers demands that he draft an unusual will in “Rabbit and the Missing Daughter” by Leah Cutter. And Evan Lewis has a little fun with genre conventions in his story “The Continental Opposite,” introducing young P.I. Peter Collins (whose name, in underworld parlance, means “nobody”).

Finally, we welcome the return to these pages of Sheriff Huck Finn, Deputy Joe, and the other residents of turn-of-the-century Marquis, Iowa, in Joe Helgerson’s “The Case of Captain Nemo’s Half Brother,” in which another quirky character gets his day. Check back here on Friday, when Joe Helgerson will talk about his inspiration for this series.

With a lineup like this, your chance to enjoy our annual humor issue is more than just dumb luck.

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.