Pull out your credit card. The UK’s The Guardian recently published not one, but two, lists of recommended crime thrillers—the best recent ones, and new ones for the month.
Among the “best” is Lucy Foley’s The Midnight Feast about local traditionalists and unwelcome visitors preparing to celebrate the summer solstice on England’s Dorset Coast. Complete with fire and the dead. More than a little reminiscent of The Serpent Dance, the new book by Sofia Slater about an off-the-rails celebration of the solstice in Cornwall. Fire and the dead. Hmmm. That celestial event was a couple of weeks back, so we’re safe now.
The editors also recommend the small book, French Windows, by Antoine Laurain, translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie—and it’s one I’ve actually read. It’s about the interplay between a psychoanalyst and his patient, a young women photographer who’s stopped taking pictures after seeing a murder. He focuses on what she does see, and her subject is the fascinating people she observes through the windows opposite. Are her stories real? Or revelatory? The Guardian calls it “a sheer delight,” and I agree!
New ones the editors especially liked include the aforementioned Foley, as well as Stephen King’s collection of short stories, You Like It Darker, ranging from the deliciously creepy to mini-novels. Supernatural elements in some, and “all are worth a read.”
They also like Will Dean’s, The Chamber, set in the claustrophobic environment of a deep-sea-diving chamber. When the crew starts to die, you’ll be hard-pressed not to think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It might be hard to step into the close confines of an elevator again after reading this one.
A new issue in editor Janet Rudolph’s excellent Mystery Readers Journal, in which mystery and crime authors talk about what inspired them to write about a particular theme, setting, or domain and how they went about doing it. There’s a certain commonality to some sources of inspiration, but there are always those fascinating quirky bits. Some of the authors that are most interesting to me draw on a vast well of knowledge, experience, and research, so that it sometimes seems they could make a valuable contribution to almost any MRJ issue!
I was tremendously amused by the cover drawing for Summer 2024 (which is Volume 40, No. 2), “Murder Takes a Holiday.” It features the Grim Reaper, ensconced in a deck chair with a cocktail and a book (yay!), while a puzzled cruise passenger looks on. “Taking a holiday” for sure. One hopes.
In Donna Andrews’s essay “Monkey Business Meets the Flying Dutchman,” she points out the value of actually visiting the place or having (some aspect of) the experience you’re writing about. She wanted to write a locked room mystery involving a cruise, but had never been on one. Easy solution: book it! Though she soon found out the crew wasn’t very forthcoming when she asked her questions about crime aboard and missing persons. “They tended to look panic-stricken and find an excuse to sneak away whenever I asked,” she says.
All this reminded me of a recent conversation with friends about the number of people who actually do go missing from cruise ships every year—the very topic the crew of Andrews’s ship avoided. Their mantra: Cruises are fun! They’re exciting! (But not in that way.)
I knew nothing about the missing cruiser phenomenon until a few years ago when I reviewed Sebastian Fitzek’s thriller, Passenger 23, for CrimeFictionLover.com. His premise of a serial killer disposing of cruise ship passengers struck me at first as an eye-roller. Then I did some research. At that time, an estimated 23 people a year—passengers and crew members alike—disappeared from the world’s cruise ships.
That number was widely viewed as an underestimate, because of the cruise shop operators’ public relations imperative to keep such incidents under wraps. They also encourage the narrative that disappearances are suicides, though often there is no evidence of that, or even contrary evidence.
Investigation is often left to a police official from the ship’s country-of-registry. For Carnival Cruises, that would be Panama, and possibly the Bahamas or Malta, where Celebrity Cruises also are registered. Disney? The Bahamas. The initial investigation and autopsy for a woman who died on a Carnival ship in 2023 was conducted by Bahamian authorities. They concluded it was a natural death, but the FBI considered it suspicious and began its own investigation some days after-the-fact, when the ship docked in Charleston.
In a case of presumed suicide from a Royal Caribbean ship late last month, the company is being fairly close-mouthed. Said a lawyer who investigates such incidents, “It’s rare for a company to publish anything that could make them seem liable for the death”—including issues like alcohol consumption.
These incentives and circumstances create the perfect set-up for deadly shenanigans. The Mystery Readers Journal cover artist apparently thought so too!
(photo: ed2456 on pixabay; creative commons license)
Sister publication to the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, AHMM also has a reputation for bringing fine short mystery and crime stories to its avid readers. This particular issue is full of notable ones and leads off with one of my own. Here are my favorites.
This issue includes the winner of the 17th Annual Black Orchid Novella Award, and this year’s winner is Libby Cudmore’s story, “Alibi on Ice.” Girl-of-all-work Valerie holds down the desk at a low-budget private detective’s office. While running an errand, Valerie discovers a semi-conscious young woman, half-buried in snow. Valerie digs her out and calls the authorities, who whisk her away in an ambulance. Her boss Martin is out sick, and when Valerie tells him about her discovery, she also relays her conviction that the woman was purposefully left there. Abandoned. Thus her first investigation begins, and, between her own doggedness, some clever analysis, and encouragement from Martin’s sick-bed, Valerie solves a challenging case. He’s proud of her. You will be too. Nice one!
In “Time Lies” by Ken Linn, a seven-year-old girl, found asleep in a phone booth, says she’s a time-traveler from 1963. Who and why? It’s up to a part-time investigator and high school math teacher to help the sheriff discover the answers.
“Delivering the Egg MacGuffin” by Joslyn Chase is a masterful exercise in misdirection, appropriate to the plot device Alfred Hitchcock himself made famous. I laughed out loud!
“Home Game” by Craig Faustus Buck is another story moving along smoothly in one direction that takes a sudden tum and ends up somewhere else altogether. Very clever.
I really loved John M. Floyd’s romantic “Moonshine and Roses” about—well, about a lot of things. Lost fortunes, lost loves, and how they may be found again, along with justice for some notorious bad guys in the wilds of Kentucky.
“Among the Long Shadows” by Vicki Weisfeld (me!) is my fourth published story featuring young Sweetwater, Texas, reporter Brianna Yamato, fighting the good fight against crime in her community and the prejudices of the good ol’ boys. The story takes place at Avenger Field outside Sweetwater, the place where, during World War II, women pilots were trained to take on aircraft support missions, freeing up the men for combat. It’s now home to the Woman Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) World War II Museum. When I’m writing a story, I like to include an element that gives me the excuse to do some research, which always stimulates new ideas for plot and character—in this case, a murdered woman flying instructor and former stunt-pilot with the Aero-Belles. Read an excerpt here.
England, Wales, and Northern Ireland have abolished this law. It’s been deemed unconstitutional in Canada, as breaching the principles of fundamental justice. Yet the United States still has it—at the federal level and in most states—and no other country relies on it more. Hawai`i, Michigan, and Kentucky are the only states to have abolished it. A few states are pulling back, but others still may impose the death penalty for it. And still others are trying to expand its scope.
Most Americans are unaware of this law, despite its draconian legal consequences. That includes most of the people charged under it.
As a writer of mystery and crime fiction, I see considerable opportunities for drama inherent in the “felony murder rule,” which punishes people for killings they didn’t actually commit. When a murder occurs during the commission of certain crimes (possibly kidnapping, robbery, rape, arson), not only are the main perpetrators held responsible, but also their accomplices, co-conspirators, or marginal participants. They can be convicted of murder, even if there was no intent to harm any victims.
In a recent New Yorker article, award-winning university professor, journalist, and MacArthur Fellow Sarah Stillman compiled a review of how a law like this can go wrong. Her article on felony murder garnered her a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting and is well worth a read in its entirety to unpack some of the complications and nuance.
Although you can imagine scenarios where more than one person is culpable in a murder case, Stillman provides some telling examples of when it hasn’t worked that way:
In Florida, Sadik Baxter was searching parked cars for cash, caught, handcuffed, and placed in a police car. His friend driving their car fled the scene, chased by the police. When he lost control, he killed two bicyclists. Both men were charged with felony murder. Read more here. Twelve years later, Sadik’s life sentence without parole is still under appeal.
Two men trying to steal copper wire from a Tulsa-area radio station tower electrocuted themselves. One died. Recovering from his burns in a hospital, the other man was charged with first-degree murder, as was the dead man’s girlfriend who was their driver.
Three teenage girls in Tennessee overdosed on fentanyl before their high school graduation ceremony; two died, the third was charged with murder.
Five Alabama youths were breaking into unoccupied houses; the police arrived, and one of the boys who had a gun was shot and killed by an officer. Three of the other boys pled down the felony murder charge, but LaKeith Smith insisted on a trial. His sentence was 65 years, reduced to 55, and most recently reduced to 30 years. Read more here.
Two young Minneapolis women are serving time after a man they had just met killed a drug dealer. They may be eligible for release after the Minnesota legislature last November revised its felony murder law retroactively to consider intent. Fully one-third of Minnesota prisoners serving time for murder had felony murder convictions. Read more here.
While authorities hope the felony murder rule will deter inherently dangerous crimes from occurring, given that most people don’t even know about it, its deterrent effect is questionable. Victims’ families themselves have protested the law’s unfair application. But prosecutors like it because, threatened with a first-degree murder conviction, those accused often plead guilty to a lesser charge or agree to testify against their confederates.
The full scope of the law’s impact is unknown, but unpublished state-level data suggest there have been more than 10,000 felony murder convictions nationwide.
This new light-hearted crime adventure is a book I’ve been looking forward to for some months. I already admire SJ Rozan’s award-winning mysteries featuring New York City private detectives Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. Although it is The Murder of Mr. Ma, co-written with media executive John Shen Yen Nee, is vastly different from the Smith/Chin stories, but equally entertaining. It features my favorite fictional detective, Tang dynasty Judge Dee Ren Jie in a 20th century version.
Judge Dee arrives in 1924 London to investigate the murders of former colleagues from the Chinese Labour Corps. (During World War I, the British government recruited several hundred thousand workers from its colonies and elsewhere to perform non-military duties, in order to free up British soldiers for fighting. Some 96,000 of these workers were Chinese.) Judge Dee’s war role was to mediate when a Chinese worker ran afoul of the military authorities. Military man William Bard, now an inspector in London’s Metropolitan Police force, became Dee’s nemesis.
Soon after his arrival in London, Dee meets a young academic, Lao She, a man with little worldly experience but a good heart, who acts as Dee’s guide and sounding board. Lao is Watson to Dee’s Holmes, recording their adventures and asking the pertinent questions that let Dee’s intellectual powers shine. The affectionate and sometimes prickly relationship between them is also reminiscent of the Holmes/Watson duo.
It doesn’t take Dee long to find old friends and acquaintances in the London Chinese community. In particular, he encounters Sergeant Hoong Liang, whose father taught Dee a full menu of Chinese martial arts skills, something that comes in handy on numerous dramatic occasions throughout this story. Dee also reaches out to knowledgeable characters in London’s underworld. Like Holmes, his circle includes people high and low.
Between his fighting skills, his gift for mimicry and disguise, and his flawless logic, Dee is a real superhero. But he does have one serious flaw. The pain of his wartime injuries was treated with opium, and he’s become addicted. On top of trying to find the murderer of his friends and persuade the police—especially his old enemy, Bard—to take the murders of the Chinese men seriously, he’s suffering the ill effects of drug withdrawal.
The story moves at breakneck speed and involves a subculture of London life not usually dealt with in mystery stories, but full of atmosphere and (mostly) charming peculiarities. It is an exciting ride, and though some of the antics must be taken with a grain of salt, it remains great fun throughout.
Another winner! So many good stories in this issue of “The World’s Leading Mystery Magazine.” You can subscribe or order individual issues online.
Here are a few of my favorites from the May/June issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, several of which had great can’t-stop-reading opening lines:
“What do you know about Kool-Aid?” Clayton Ellicott asked. First line from Gregory Fallis’s “Where’s Dookie?” An art world mystery, which, along with Michael Bracken’s humorous “Bermuda Triangle” about a missing musical instrument, prove that shenanigans in the creative fields are not limited to those perpetrated by us authors. Bracken’s long first line puts you right in the scene and in the mood: “Erica Witherspoon had asked to meet at Coda’s, an upscale drinking establishment two blocks from the concert hall she managed, and I was sitting in a back booth finishing a gin and tonic when she walked in.”
“Poor Betsy might so easily have perished, only she didn’t. Her misfortune wasn’t quite of that magnitude.” From R.T. Raichev’s “Blind Witness,” in which a crime writer is cleverly lured into involving herself in a real-life case, much against her better instincts.
“Stepping out of her car, Miuri feels a wave of despondency wash over her.” In “Seppuku” by Geneviève Blouin, in which you get not only the cultural milieu of French-speaking Montreal, but also the Japanese cultural background of the detective and the sad, escalating crime itself, as foreshadowed in that grim first line.
“First I saw that snake-green car, long and low and not quite Christian.” In “When Baptists Go Bad,” by H. Hodgkins, a story that proves there’s a solution for everything, at least in fiction.
This is the second in the entertaining historical mystery series Bridget Walsh launched last year with The Tumbling Girl. The stories are set in a somewhat seedy Victorian England music hall called the Variety Palace.
The Innocents takes its title from a mass-casualty event that occurred at Christmastime fourteen years before the main story. In a different theater, subsequently closed, a sold-out audience of children had been promised presents after the show. Actors on stage threw the treats toward the audience in the stalls. Seeing they would never get any of the presents, the children seated upstairs in the balconies and galleries rushed downstairs only to find that the doors into the main auditorium bolted shut against them. In the massive pileup of small bodies, pushing and shoving, many children were injured and one hundred eighty-three suffocated. No one was ever held to account for the tragedy—a bitter pill in the hearts of a great many families.
Minnie Ward, protagonist of the earlier novel and this one, is a skit-writer for the Variety Palace. She is temporarily in charge of the Palace while her boss, Edward Tansford (Tansie) recovers from the tragic events recounted in the earlier book. (While author Walsh makes frequent reference to those events, it isn’t necessary to have read the earlier novel in order to follow the story in this one.) Minnie is again teamed up with former policeman, now private detective, Albert Easterbook. You can’t help but believe that, if the series goes on long enough, those two will finally capitulate to their obvious mutual attraction, but so far Minnie is holding fast. Well, wavering.
Now it’s 1877, and the theater world has experienced a series of recent murders. They hit close to home when one of the Palace’s performers reports his brother missing and asks for Minnie’s help. When Minnie and Albert discover the missing man’s body in his dressing room, the realization gradually takes hold that all of the dead were connected in some way to the Christmastime tragedy. What’s more, all the deaths involved some form of suffocation. With so many people and families affected by the children’s deaths, it’s a challenge for Minnie and Albert to figure out where to begin their investigations.
Tansie reemerges, ready to take the helm of the Palace again but soon distracted again—this time by the disappearance of his monkey, who, he believes, has been snatched by a nefarious character who runs dog fights. Here Walsh gives you a peek at not just the talented and sometimes tony denizens and patrons of the Victorian theater world, but also a look at a decidedly seamy side of London life. Her vivid descriptions of these distinctive settings and the picturesque people they attract add considerably to the charm of the whole narrative.
Of course Albert worries about Minnie’s safety and of course she takes chances she shouldn’t, but in the fast pace of events here, you don’t have time to dwell on her occasional lapses of good sense. Nor do you lose confidence in the basic goodness of the main characters. Flaws and all, they are eminently likeable (even the monkey, who hides in the theater’s rafters and pees on the audience below).
Meanwhile, other complications have arisen. There’s plenty of plot here, engaging characters, a colorful setting, and a fast pace. If you like to lose yourself in another era with a solid historical mystery, this is one you may really enjoy!
Morgan Greene’s new thriller, Savage Ridge, is named for the tiny Northwest US town where the action takes place. Ten years before the now of the story, three teenage best friends—Nicholas Pips, Emmy Nailer, and Peter Sachs—committed murder. (Not a spoiler; you find this out on page one.) Though they were suspects in the crime, an air-tight alibi set them free. For the last decade, they have been deliberately out of touch with each other, scattered across the western United States. Now, within days of each other, they’ve arrived back at their home town, where the ghosts of the past confront them on every street and around every corner. Coincidence? Not a chance.
The story is told in chapters that alternate then and now—the time of the murder and the current day. And they alternate perspectives—mostly those of Nicholas Pips; the long-time sheriff, Barry Poplar; Ellison Saint John, son of the wealthiest man in the valley and brother of the deceased, Sammy Saint John; and Sloane Yo, a private detective Ellison has hired to reexamine the case. Her first assignment—bring all three of them back—is a success.
Sachs has thrived in his new life away from Savage Ridge, Pips has had a mediocre decade, and Nailer is a mess. None of them escapes the guilt they feel about the murder, no matter how much they reassure each other that it was wholly justified. The crime looms over them like the steep hillsides loom over the town, their pine forests jagged sentinels against the sky, ever watching, and darkening the outlook of the people below. Nor are the three friends exactly the same people they were ten years before and, as the story progresses, the absolute trust they once had in each other is increasingly, dangerously, shaky.
Yo’s investigations reveal Sammy was much disliked by his classmates and had zero friends. He was not the golden boy his father and brother pretend he was, but the product of an entitled, autocratic, abusive man. Now, ten years later, the father is dying, and Ellison desperately hopes that, by pinning the crime on his only suspects—Pips, Nailer, and Sachs—he can gain his father’s respect at last. If it isn’t soon, it will be too late.
The story is an interesting kind of psychological thriller, because of the careful construction of the mental states of the three killers. Their reactions, their jockeying with Yo (who circles ever-closer) and with each other create much of the tension.
Savage Ridge is also a fascinating study of small-town life. Everyone knows everyone else, everyone has felt the overweening power of the Saint John family.
For me, this book was a real page-turner. Although you know all along who committed the crime, the why is unstated for a long time. Meanwhile, the characterizations are so strong, I found myself really invested in the fates of all three of the friends, and Sloane Yo, too.
A great plot keeps you reading, compelling characters make you care. But in my case it’s the love of words that brings a smile to my face. Authors using them in clever new ways. Painting indelible pictures with them. Hinting to me that they love the language as much as I do.
The short stories in the current issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine show once again that mystery writers can be just as expert at manipulating the English language as their more literary cousins. So many excellent stories in terms of the plot/character/setting basics, plus a couple whose deft prose grabbed my attention.
First, let me mention Bill Pronzini’s story, “The Finger,” because it has an affinity with this theme. His character is a successful and prolific writer of international suspense novels who has been known to crank out a 100,000-word thriller in just five weeks. Clearly, this man writes at a devilish speed, aided by superb touch typing skills. When an infection causes him to lose the little finger of his right hand, his typing speed plummets and, worse, the cascade of ideas that propelled that lightning pace has dried up too. Instead, Pronzini writes, “the innovative similes and metaphors that were the hallmarks of his work came less easily and tended to be trite instead of original. The prose stuttered and bumbled.”
In this collection, there are several examples of “innovative similes and metaphors” that this nine-fingered author could have been justly proud of, in my opinion, and no stuttering and bumbling. Here are three examples I especially admired:
In Nils Gilbertson’s unsentimental story “Apple Juice,” he describes this scene: “By the time he reached the barn, night had turned to early morn and sun shone through bare trees, their branches like petrified veins against the cornflower sky.” Petrified veins. I look at my hands and see that instantly.
The EQMM Department of First Stories offers “Murder Under Sedation” by Lawrence Ong, and though this is his first detective story in EQMM, he rips off a clever putdown of every dreary dental waiting room everywhere: “I scanned the magazines on the rack to count how many are still in print before turning my attention to the waiting room’s other occupant.” I laughed.
“Turnabout” by Sheila Kohler contains a short passage, a model of subtlety, that conveys more meaning than some entire novels. The narrator and her longtime friend Jane walk into Jane’s husband’s study, where he and another visitor, Sergei, sit in armchairs opposite each other, smoking and not speaking. “It was something about the silence, I think, that spoke so clearly to me, or perhaps the way they were looking at one another, something in the brown-green and the blue-grey eyes which, young though I was, I recognized. I looked at Jane. Did she, smart girl that she was, understand what was going on?”
Each Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery volume, published by Belanger Books, includes at least a dozen stories, filling in the years 1881-1886. Holmes and Watson were already together then, but Watson was uncharacteristically quiet about their adventures. In Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, edited by Richard T. Ryan, contemporary writers make up for Watson’s reticence, creating excellent adventures to help fill in the gap.
Naturally, the challenges in writing a story set almost 140 years ago are significant. No cell phones, no video surveillance, no DNA evidence, no criminal databases, and no other scientific or organizational trappings modern crime stories employ. I asked my fellow authors whether these differences are a help with their stories or a hindrance. Here’s what they said:
The Victorian setting allows for a more “classical” mystery, says George Gardner. For his story, he researched how much the Victorians knew about dynamite. He admits that he “may have bent some rules in terms of chronology there,” but since dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel in 1866, George is on pretty solid ground, it seems.
The Victorian setting “is an advantage more than a hindrance as the instantaneousness of modern communications can get in the way of a good story,” says Kevin Thornton. The telegraph is the fastest communications technology available to Holmes, and in Thornton’s two stories, he makes good use of it. Another advantage, says George Jacobs, is that he can “keep Holmes’s mind at the forefront of the adventure.” What’s more, “having to rush around London (or farther afield) on foot or in a cab, and sometimes engage in fisticuffs with the villains” adds to the adventure.
The authors strive to be sure that not just the technology, but “the feel of every story is right,” too, says Katy Darby. This includes language and dialog, style and social etiquette, and even making sure the types of characters are true to their times. How to accomplish this? Darby says, “The 1860s-1880s is my second home, period-wise, and my Victorian library is ever-growing.” Shelby Phoenix noted what is an extra attraction of the Victorian era for her: It “allows for so many more paranormal approaches, and who can say no to making things seem spooky?”
It’s really a balance. By setting a story in the Victorian era, authors avoid having modern technology “short-circuit the elaborate investigation” they’d planned. Nevertheless, Holmes’s era was one of rapid scientific and technological progress, and authors must pinpoint when these advances took hold, says D.J. Tyrer. Over the period in which the Holmes stories are set—roughly 1885 to 1914—much about society, science, and politics changed. But, “whatever level of technology Holmes has access to,” says author Paul Hiscock, “I always see him as being at the cutting edge of forensic science.” Whatever the technological details, “a good mystery is about how the detective puts all the pieces of evidence together.”
Many authors say that one of the aspects of writing in that era that they like best is delving into those details. As an example, Kevin Thornton’s two linked stories involving shenanigans related to new North American transcontinental railways offered numerous enticing rabbit holes for this author to pursue. As Watson extols the excitement of shortening travel times, Holmes points out that “as the citizenry disperses, so does crime.” This observation foreshadows a visit from a representative of the much-indebted Canadian Pacific Railroad, fearful of a hostile takeover. Watson needs an explanation of this financial predicament, which leads to a lucid explanation of the constraints faced by a publicly traded company. Other examples of Thornton’s research include descriptions of the myriad ways Holmes could visually identify an American, military training, Eastern martial arts, American railroad moguls, the action of poison, and the lineage of the Earl of Derby, the Honourable Frederick Stanley. (In 1888, Stanley became Governor General of Canada, and Thornton helpfully notes that the famous hockey trophy is named for him.)
See how these authors put fact and fiction together. Their stories in Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885 are: George Gardner – “The Adventure of the Damaged Tomb” Kevin Thornton – “Tracks Across Canada” and “Tracked Across America” George Jacobs – “The Mystery of the Cloven Cord” Katy Darby – “The Adventure of the Lock Hospital” Shelby Phoenix – “Sherlock Holmes and the Six-Fingered Hand Print” D.J. Tyrer – “The Japanese Village Mystery” Paul Hiscock – “The Light of Liberty”
