Weekly links to what’s fresh, what’s famous, and what’s fiendish in short mystery and crime fiction.
Short sample:
She was a tall, seedy, sad-eyed blonde who had once been a policewoman and had lost her job when she married a cheap little check bouncer named Johnny Horne, to reform him. From “Goldfish” by Raymond Chandler (in Raymond Chandler: Collected Stories, Everyman’s Library, collected in 2002).
Point of view:
From the EQMM blog: Frederic Danay and the Art of the Detective Short Story.
Review: Ellery Queen’s Japanese Golden Dozen (ed. Frederic Dannay).
New releases, old releases:
Announced on the SMFS blog – Pattern of Behavior: Ten Tales of Murder and Mayhem.
Includes Helen Smith’s Thriller Award winning short story “Nana” – Killer Women: Crime Club Anthology #2.
Tricks of the Trade:
A devotee of “rejectomancy” (the arcane practice of divining hidden meaning from rejection letters) reflects on what to do about a story after 24 rejections spanning five years.
Free Reads:
Pop open the new issue of Flash Bang Mysteries for five free stories.
Check my shorts, please:
The anthology The Best Laid Plans includes my impossible-crime private eye tale “Callingdon Mountain.”
Thanks for visiting.
PS — Breaking news: My private eye You-Solve-It “Disappearing Diamonds” was accepted for an upcoming issue of Mystery Weekly magazine.