Just finished the May, June, and July 2014 (how do they assign the date to this publication?) issues of EQMM. As always, a real mix of styles, eras, and plotting in the 28 stories therein, by both new and established mystery writers. Among the stories I liked best were those by:
(photo: shiftfrequency.com)
- Frankie Y. Bailey really got my curiosity going. She has a new book out, The Red Queen Dies
- Alex Grecian – in whose story, a woman’s wireless pacemaker is threatened by a mysterious caller. Grecian, author of the NYT bestselling historical mystery The Yard, might have read the April 30 story on this website!
- Brian Tobin’s “Teddy,” about a homeless man’s love for his dog, was powerful writing. Tobin’s two novels, The Ransom and A Victimless Crime, have been well-received.
- I’ve grown to like the EQMM stories by Dave Zeltserman—two of whose mystery tales, A Killer’s Essence and Outsourced, are being optioned for film—which put a 21st century twist on the Archie-Nero Wolfe relationship. In Zeltserman’s version, “archie” is a “two-inch rectangular piece of advanced computer technology” that his owner, Julius, wears as a tie-pin. While Julius talks, Archie researches. Cute.
- Liza Cody has created an engaging, not-so-sure of herself police constable Shareen Manasseh to good effect, and another story with Manasseh appears in the British Crime Writers’ Association’s new collection, Deadly Pleasures, and many novels, most recently, the Dickensian Lady Bag.
