The torrid days of summer are the perfect time to kick back and read, and our July/August issue is full of hot new fiction. From flaring tempers to the spiciest of chicken wings to a world baked by global warming, the characters in this issue brave it all.
A food-truck owner with the hottest wings in town and his off-duty security guard–customer deal with some unwanted heat in Robert Mangeot’s “Let It Burn.” Jay Carey returns with another distopian procedural set in a future Florida ravaged by global warming in “We Frequent the Moon Bar.” The heat of an office romance drives characters to make poor decisions in Cathryn Grant’s “Serious Damage.” And in our cover story, some minor league ball players are filling their off-hours by making an amateur movie when they learn of the drowning of a teammate in Chris Muessig’s “The Making of Velveteen Dream.”
Meanwhile, a rural gathering of southeast Asian drug warlords proves difficult navigating for a city-bred teen in R. T. Lawton’s “Merit Making.” A pit stop at a lonely diner puts small-town Mississippi sheriff Ray Douglas and mystery writer Jenny Parker conveniently close to the scene of a murder in John M. Floyd’s whodunit “Trail’s End.” O’Neil De Noux returns in noirish form with a new story about the 1940s New Orleans PI Lucien Kaye, “The Magnolia Murders.” Joseph D’Agnese offers an unusual Sherlockian tale, with Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson facing off in “A Respectable Lady.” And a former fur trapper struggles with settled life—and a murder—in Eric Rutter’s “Blood Debt.”
We warmly welcome two authors new to our pages this issue. Bev Vincent offers a tale of an unlikely superhero in “Pain-Man.” And Susan Breen introduces novice PI Maggie Dove as she tackles her first big case in “The Countess of Warsaw.”
Finally, Steve Liskow scores his second Black Orchid Novella Award with “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma,” which once again visits the Detroit music scene for a new mystery involving the members of that hot new band, Promise.
So find a convenient pool, a cool beverage, and some shades because this issue’s stories are hot, hot, hot.
Trace Evidence 