Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Little Big Crimes: Elvis Duty, by Matthew Wilson
Sunday, January 29, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: Trip Among the Bluebonnets by James A. Hearn
SMFS list member James A. Hearn’s short story, Trip
Among the Bluebonnets, is published today in Black Cat Weekly #74.
Published by Wildside Press, the issue is available here in digital format.
Website Description:
Our 74th issue features an essay from Norman Spinrad, the sort of non-fiction feature I’d like to see more of here in the future. (In fact, we do have an interesting essay from Harlan Ellison coming up in an issue or two, too.) And I plan to resume running author interviews shortly as well.
This issue features an original story by Neil Plakcy,
plus more recent tales by James A. Heart and Phyllis Ann Karr, plus classics by
Norbert Davis, Ray Bradbury, Frank Belknap Long, and Edmond Hamilton. And no
issue would be complete without a Hal Charles solve-it-yourself mystery.
Here’s this issue’s lineup:
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:
“Flaking Out in Wilton Manors,” by Neil Plakcy
[Michael Bracken Presents short story]
“A Conundrum In Winter,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself
Mystery]
“Trip Among the Bluebonnets,” by James A. Hearn [short
story]
“A Knotty Problem,” by Hal Meredith [short story]
“Dead Man’s Chest,” by Norbert Davis [novelet]
Non-Fiction:
“An SF Manifesto,” by Norman Spinrad [essay]
Science Fiction & Fantasy:
“Two Days Out of Sludgepocket,” by Phyllis Ann Karr
[short story]
“The Shape of Things,” by Ray Bradbury [short story]
“Galactic Heritage,” by Frank Belknap Long [short
story]
“Regulations,” by Murray Leinster [short story]
“Transuranic,” by Edmond Hamilton [novelet]
SMFS Members Nominated for the 2022 Agatha Award Nominees
Established in 1989, Malice Domestic™ is an annual fan
convention in the metropolitan Washington D.C. area that celebrates the
traditional mystery, best typified by the works of Agatha Christie, containing
no explicit sex, excessive gore, or violence.
Malice Domestic #35 will take place April 28-30, 2023. Again this year, numerous SMFS list members are nominated in several categories. The full list of the 2022 Agatha Award nominees and more can be found here. The categories and nominated SMFS list members are:
Children's/ YA Mystery
Fleur Bradley for Daybreak on Raven Island
(Viking Books for Young People).
Best Contemporary Novel
Annette Dashofy for Fatal Reunion: A Zoe
Chambers Mystery (Level Best Books).
Best First Novel
M. A. (Mary) Monnin for Death in the Aegean: An Intrepid Traveler Mystery (Level Best Books).
Nina Wachsman for The
Gallery of Beauties: A Venice Beauties Mystery
(Level Best Books).
Best Short Story
Barb Goffman for the short story, Beauty and the Beyotch, in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #29.
Lisa Q. Mathews for the short story, Fly Me to the Morgue, in the anthology, Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Diabolical (Wildside Press).
Richie Narvaez for the short story, The Minnesota Twins Meet Bigfoot, in the book, Land of 10,000 Thrills: Bouchercon Anthology 2022 (Down & Out Books). Read for free at his website.
Art Taylor for the short story, The Invisible Band, in
the anthology, Edgar
& Shamus Go Golden: Twelve Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Master Detection
from the Golden Age of Mystery and Beyond
(Down & Out Books). Read for free at his website.
In addition, the recently published book, Promophobia:
Taking the Mystery Out of Promoting Crime Fiction,
is nominated in the Best Non-Fiction category. Published by Sisters in Crime, it
includes essays by numerous SMFS list members.
Saturday, January 28, 2023
SMFS Member Guest Post: Definitively Objective by Paula Messina
Please welcome Paula Messina back to the blog today…
Definitively Objective
by Paula Messina
“I Drive Your Truck” was a number one hit for Lee
Brice and the 2014 Academy of Country Music Song of the Year. It’s hardly
surprising that a truck appears in the lyrics of a country song, but this song
is different. It’s not about the truck. It’s about what the truck represents.
Written from the point of view of a young man
grieving for his brother, everything the listener learns about the brothers is
through objects: the truck, the eighty-nine cents in the ashtray, dog tags, an
Old Skoal can, a “Go Army” shirt. While driving the truck, the brother feels
his deceased brother’s presence.
There’s a story behind the song. One of the
songwriters, Connie Harrington, heard an interview with Paul Monti in which he
talked about his son Jared, who was killed in Afghanistan while attempting to
save another soldier. In an interview, Mr. Monti said about the truck, “It's
him. It's got his DNA all over it.
“You've got to hold onto something. It's just a
good feeling to drive that truck knowing that he drove it. I talk to him when
I'm in there. I talk to him all the time."
The song and Paul Monti’s grieving process are
great examples of the power of inanimate objects in fiction and in life.
In a Writers
Digest article, “How to Use
Objects to Strengthen Your Characters,” Chris Freese says, “One of the most common techniques
fiction writers fail to implement is the use of objects. Chances are, your
character isn't just standing there, spouting off dialogue. The character is
doing something with his hands. She's exchanging a business card. He's fiddling
with a pencil. Objects provide concreteness to scenes and bring importance to
dialogue and encounters.”
Freese cites
an excerpt from Matt Bird’s The Secrets of Story: You can’t rely on character interactions to
reveal all the emotions....But when you establish their relationship to an
object, they can express their true emotions, unfiltered by other baggage.”
The power of “I Drive Your Truck” is its
unfiltered emotion. The listener becomes the brother and experiences what the
brother feels, his attachment to his brother and his grief.
According to Italo Calvino, “The moment an object
appears in a narrative, it is charged with a special force and becomes like the
pole of a magnetic field, a knot in the network of invisible relationships.”
I doubt that objects are always magic, but when
they are, those objects become superlative revealers of character, mood,
motivation. They show. After all, inanimate objects cannot tell. Think Citizen
Kane’s rosebud. Miss Havisham’s wedding cake. Dorothy’s ruby slippers, and
Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg’s bearing balls. These objects are
literary magic that reveal entire worlds about these characters.
I’d never thought about infusing objects with
magic until I realized it’s something I often do. In my short story, “The Last
Leaf,” banana bread and an oak tree establish the deep connection between a
dying grandfather and his granddaughter. My essay, “Tomatoes,” is ostensibly
about growing them. It’s not. Tomatoes magically represent love and loss.
In my WIP, a mystery set in Boston during World
War II, I originally had an investigating police officer discover a
blood-stained scarf, a gift from Donatello, the main character, to his sister
Antonia, the murder victim. The scarf didn’t feel right. It lacked magic.
In the revised scene, the officer discovers a
glove, but not just any glove. It’s a monogrammed, Persian-blue leather glove.
Antonia’s best friend had helped Donatello pick out the perfect Christmas gift
for his sister. Now the gloves are the last gift he’ll ever give Antonia.
That one-of-a-kind glove takes on great emotional
weight. It is evidence against Donatello, but more than that, it represents
what he has lost. He will never see his sister wear those gloves or share
another Christmas with her. A gift he chose with great care is now stained with
her blood. It is soaked in her DNA.
And, of course, gloves come in pairs. Where’s the
other one?
Who will find it? When? Where?
The reader can easily identify with the
importance of objects because we infuse them with importance. We save them to
revisit again and again, just like Paul Monti driving his son’s truck. A menu
from a first date. A high school football team jacket. A child’s first pair of
shoes.
Poet, novelist, and storyteller Joan Leotta
agrees that objects are magical. “Oh my yes, I find them very magical! Many of
my poems, not just the ones that are classically ekphrastic, inspired by art,
are inspired by objects.”
Leotta also expresses the importance of objects
both in her life and in her fiction. “I feel the touch of my loved ones on
certain plates we use. My fourth novel, Secrets of the Heart, features a
heart-shaped box that holds the key to family history.”
That heart-shaped box contains “family secrets
kept for the love of the two main characters. The shape of the box was, for me
as a writer, key to the fact that family ties are more important than the
history and clues to treasures in the box.”
Objects can be much more important than something
a character does with his hands. Objects might be inanimate, but they can
become more than clues and red herrings. They can reveal a character’s
personality and emotional life. Their magic can deepen the reader’s connection
to characters.
Objects are another tool that a writer uses to express a character’s emotional life and to create a bond with the reader. Don’t objectify objects. Breathe life into them. After all, they’re magic.
Paula Messina ©2023
Paula Messina is a seasoned Toastmaster and an award-winning speaker. She
writes essays, fiction, and non-fiction. While she does not own a cat, she is
on the board of Indelible Literary and Arts Journal (Indeliblelit.com).
Indelible’s Evenings can be found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8qZIPPS8P9Dlml-y9AggTg.
Friday, January 27, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: Hard Mountain Clay by C. W. Blackwell
Today is publication day for SMFS list member C. W. Blackwell’s new book, Hard Mountain Clay. Published by Shotgun Honey, the read is available from Amazon and other vendors.
Publisher Description:
Siblings Ben and Maisy find they have no
one to turn to after witnessing a gruesome hit-and-run that shatters their
innocence. Not their mother, a poor waitress with a spiraling heroin
addiction—and certainly not her new boyfriend, a brutal, meth-smoking tow truck
driver named Lou Holt. When Lou’s cover-up slowly turns their backyard into a
makeshift cemetery, they devise plans to escape their chaotic home in the Santa
Cruz Mountains, only to see their lives sink to even darker depths.
In this rural town buried deep under
redwood needles and mountain fog, a dangerous cast of characters never seems
too far away. There’s Cowboy, a fast-talking enabler of Lou’s petty schemes;
and MacLeod, a pock-faced proprietor of an off-the-books wrecking yard who
utilizes child labor to disassemble his stolen cars. But everything changes
when Don Halbert—a persistent school administrator with a keen eye for
trouble—starts advocating for Ben and Maisy’s welfare. The outcome will break
your heart.
Thursday, January 26, 2023
Criminal Minds: Six Bits of Writing Advice from James W. Ziskin
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: Melon CollieBaby by John M. Floyd
SMFS list member John M. Floyd’s short story, Melon
CollieBaby, appears in the January 25, 2023, issue of the weekly newsletter, Texas
Gardener’s Seeds. You can read it online for free here.
SMFS Member Publishing News: List of Contributors by Twist Phelan
Twist Phelan’s short story, List of Contributors,
appears in The Dark City Crime and Mystery Magazine: Volume 8, Issue 2,
January 2023, issue. Published by The Dark City Magazine, the
read is available at Amazon.
Publisher Description:
In this issue of The Dark City a father decides the fate of his troubled son, and a
video store employee is seduced by his dark side.
In the world of crime novel fandom, a famous novelist
is murdered and the clues embedded in a crime magazine's List of Contributors.
Finally, an addict seeks the end of the road, and a
troubled young criminal deals with a bad case of nerves....
Welcome to the darker side of reality.
Welcome to The Dark City.
SMFS Member Publishing News: A Scarab for Normandy by Gerald Elias
Gerald Elias’s short story, A Scarab for Normandy, appears in the anthology, Coolest American Stories 2023. Published by Coolest Stories Press earlier this month, the book is available in digital and print formats at Amazon and other vendors.
Amazon Description:
America’s most talented storytellers share their most
interesting, engaging, unputdownable work in a collection made for story
lovers.
Praised early on by numerous award-winning and
bestselling authors, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2023 is the second volume of the
annual short story anthology whose guiding philosophy is that a collection of
widely appealing short stories can make for common ground that could unite
rather than divide Americans.
Toward this end, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2023
features a previously uncollected heartbreaking story by Morgan Talty, author
of the widely acclaimed Night of the Living Rez; a witty story about growing up
fast by widely published crime writer Nikki Dolson; and a candid tale about
motherhood in the wake of tragedy by T.E. Wilderson.
And since interesting storytelling―rather than a bunch
of publishing credits―matters most to story-hungry readers, COOLEST AMERICAN
STORIES 2023 also includes a page-turner about celebrity stalking written by
brand new author Georgia Smith; a previously unpublished and sensual story
about love versus the American Dream by up-and-coming author Patricia GarcÃa
Luján; and R.C. Goodwin's striking tale about a dying parent's wish―among others
in this treasure trove of unputdownable, sharply written, sometimes comic,
sometimes frightening, always suspenseful stories loaded with twists and turns.
SMFS Member Publishing News: The Competition by Veronica Leigh
Veronica Leigh’s short story, The Competition, appears
in the recently released book, Night Terrors Vol. 24: Short Horror Stories Anthology.
Published by Scare Street, the read is now available in digital and print
formats at Amazon and other vendors.
Amazon Description:
Turn page after page of relentless terror…
An old piece of pottery holds an ancient evil within,
until a man and his daughter unwittingly release it into the world. A private
chauffeur picks up a very strange passenger, who reveals something terrifying
lurking along the dark night roads, just out of sight. And justice hunts down a
terrified man, when he discovers his ancestor may have committed a gruesome
crime…
Scare Street is proud to present fourteen diabolical
new tales in this bone-chilling collection. Each ghastly page unleashes a new
nightmare, ripped from the depths of your psyche.
It’s almost as if this book has a mind of its own; a
monstrous, disturbed mind, a mind full of dark dreams, and twisted nightmares.
It wants to make you shiver with fear. It longs to
hear you scream.
And it knows exactly what scares you…
This volume features the following stories:
1. Twist the Lid by Gordon Grice
2. Arthur's Wish by Daniel Conyers
3. A Girl of Peculiar Taste by S. C. Vincent
4. Carved in Dreams by J. Anthony Hartley
5. Rough Waters by Corey Niles
6. Hellbender by Phil Keeling
7. High Beams by A. K. McCarthy
8. Ido by John Joseph Ryan
9. Hour of the Witch by Frederick Pangbourne
10. This Girl I Used to Know by Suki Litchfield
11. The Competition by Veronica Leigh
12. The Likeness of a Murderer by Simon Lee-Price
13. The Other Cassandra Went Insane by Shannon Frost
Greenstein
14. The Child Thief by Ron Ripley and Kevin Saito
Tuesday, January 24, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: Four Leaf Cleaver: A Country Store Mystery by Maddie Day/Edith Maxwell
Today is publication day for SMFS list member Edith
Maxwell’s new book, Four Leaf Cleaver: A Country Store Mystery.
Writing as Maddie Day, the book is published by Kensington
Books. The book is available in print, audio, and digital formats, from Amazon
and other vendors. This is the eleventh book in the series that began with Flipped
For Murder.
Description:
The eleventh installment in Maddie Day’s deliciously
popular Country Store cozy mysteries . . . It’s Saint Patrick’s Day in South Lick, Indiana, but a holiday cooking
competition at Robbie Jordan’s country store and restaurant Pans ’N Pancakes is
put on the back-burner when a killer strikes.
There’s no mistaking Saint Patrick’s Day at Pans ’N
Pancakes. Robbie may only be Irish by marriage to Abe O’Neill, but the shelves
of vintage cookware in her southern Indiana store are draped with glittery
shamrocks and Kelly-green garlands and her restaurant is serving shepherd’s pie
and Guinness Beer brownies. The big event, however, is a televised cooking
competition to be filmed on site.
Unfortunately, someone’s luck has run out. Before the
cameras start rolling, tough-as-nails producer Tara O’Hara Moore is found
upstairs in her B&B room, bludgeoned apparently by the heavy hilt of a
cleaver left by her side. Now, not only does Robbie have a store full of
festive decorations, she’s got a store full of suspects . . .
SMFS Members Published in Dark Yonder: Issue 1
Today is publication day for three SMFS list members
who have short stories in Dark Yonder: Issue 1. Published by Thalia
Press, the read is available in digital and print formats at Amazon.
Craig Faustus Buck with "Home Game."
Mike McHone with "Perforation of a Moment."
P.M. Raymond with "The Entitled Life and Untimely
Death of King Booker."
Amazon Description:
Don’t miss out on Issue 1 of DARK YONDER, a new
literary journal that’s pushing the boundaries of neo noir. Issue 1 includes a
killer cocktail recipe, commentary by editors and crime fiction authors Eryk
Pruitt and Katy Munger, plus the best of dark fiction today:
The Twenty-One Foot Rule by Nick Mamatas
Home Game by Craig Faustus Buck
Beni by Gregg Williard
The Worst Game of Baseball Ever Played by Adam
Breckenridge
Perforation of a Moment by Mike McHone
Dorothy by Anna Kristiansen
Or Not to Be by Johnny Shaw
The Entitled Life and Untimely Death of King Booker by
P.M. Raymond
Verna Maxell by Dana King
A Harvest of Malice by Matt McHugh
This is not your grandfather’s noir. Forget
middle-aged alcoholics in bad jackets roaming the mean streets of L.A. in
search of redemption and a bonus roll in the hay with a duplicitous dame. The
debut issue of DARK YONDER takes a look at the dark side of modern life,
including sibling rivalry, the shelf life of marriage, our culture of greed,
violence as entertainment, child soldiers, obsessive love gone wrong, and so
much more.
Monday, January 23, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: Key Ring by M. E. Proctor
SMFS list member M. E. Proctor’s short story, Key Ring,
has been published on the Roi Fainéant website. You can read the tale for
free here.
Little Big Crimes: The Grown-Ups Table, by Steve Hockensmith
Sunday, January 22, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: In Plain Sight by Diana Deverell
SMFS list member Diana Deverell’s short story, In
Plain Sight, is published today in Black Cat Weekly #73. Published by Wildside
Press, the issue is available here
in digital format.
Website Description:
Our 73rd issue features an original mystery story by
Laird Long (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken) plus great modern
tales from Diana Deverell (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman), Nicole
Givens Kurtz (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Cynthia Ward), and Richard Wilson (a
rare short story that only appeared in a limited edition chapbook). Plus
classics from Ray Bradbury, Murray Leinster, Carolyn Wells, George O. Smith,
and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Quite a list of contributors!
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:
“Murder On My Mind,” by Laird Long [Michael Bracken
Presents short story]
“The Play’s the Thing,” Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself
Mystery]
“In Plain Sight,” by Diana Deverell [Barb Goffman
Presents short story]
The Case of Oscar Slater, by Arthur Conan Doyle
[novel]
Where’s Emily, by Carolyn Wells [Fleming Stone series,
novel]
Science Fiction & Fantasy:
“The Pluviophile,” by Nicole Givens Kurtz [Cynthia
Ward Presents novelet]
“A Rat for a Friend,” by Richard Wilson [short story]
“Referent,” by Ray Bradbury [short story]
“The Seven Temporary Moons,” by Murray Leinster
[novelet]
Hellflower, by George O. Smith [novel]
Saturday, January 21, 2023
SMFS Members Published In Hook, Line, and Sinker: The Seventh Guppy Anthology
Numerous SMFS list members have short
stories in the new book, Hook, Line, and Sinker: The Seventh Guppy
Anthology. Published by Wolf's
Echo Press, the read is available in digital and print formats from Amazon
and other vendors. The SMFS list members in the book are:
Sandra Benson with “Manual for Success.”
Lida Bushloper with “Senior Discount.”
Kait Carson with “Gutted, Filleted, and
Fried”
Susan Daly with “The Americanization of
Jack MacKenzie.”
Mary Dutta with “The Grift of the Magi.”
Kate Fellowes with “The Buddy System.”
Vinnie Hansen with “Perfect Partner.”
Ann Michelle Harris with “Changeling.”
Kim Keeline with “Occupied With Death.”
Jane Limprecht with “Net Profit and Loss.”
Sally Milliken with “Trailblazer.”
M.A. Monnin with “Just Another Shot in the
Dark.”
Merrilee Robson with “The Ass-In.”
KM Rockwood with “Dear Lathea.”
Lisa Anne Rothstein with “Catch and Release.”
Steve Shrott with “Crime and Convenience.”
Frances Stratford with “Wise Enough to
Play the Fool.”
Shannon Taft with “Research.”
Amazon Description:
Deep inside, in that place you hide from the world, have you ever considered how you would carry off a great con? Or maybe secretly plotted revenge for falling prey to a grifter, liar, or cheat? As these twenty-three authors of devious plot twists show, whether it’s running a con or extracting revenge, it doesn’t always go the way you expected. In this seventh anthology of short stories from the 1,100 - member Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, the stakes are high: money, power, love, and life itself. The stories range from Tudor England to tomorrow’s headline after another fish takes the bait. Hook, line, and Sinker.
Twenty-three original tales of grifters,
con artists, and their marks. The seventh anthology of the Guppy Chapter of
Sisters in Crime, Inc.
SMFS Members Nominated for the 2023 Edgar Awards
The nominees for 2023 Edgar Awards, so named to honor Edgar Allen Poe, have been announced by the Mystery Writers of America. Winners will be announced on April 27, 2023, as noted on the MWA website.
SMFS list member William Burton McCormick is nominated
in the Best Short Story category for his short story, Locked-In. The tale was
published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine: January/February 2022
issue.
SMFS list member Emilya Naymark is nominated in The G. P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award category for her book, Behind the Lie. The read was published last February by Crooked Lane Books.
SleuthSayers: A Cold Case by John Floyd
2023 SMFS Lefty Award Nominees
Two SMFS list members are up for the 2023 Lefty Awards. Both members are nominated in the Best Mystery Novel Category. Winners will be announced Saturday evening, March 18, 2023, as noted on the Left Coast Crime #33 website. The nominated SMFS members and their books are:
James L’Etoile for Dead
Drop (published by Level Best Books).
Gigi Pandian for Under
Lock & Skeleton Key (published by Minotaur Books).
Friday, January 20, 2023
SMFS Members Published in Crimeucopia: We'll Be Right Back - After This!
Glen Bush with “Cold Eyes, Cold Blood.”
Eve Fisher with "Cruel as the Grave."
Jim Guigli with “Blood on the Stairs.”
Edward Lodi with “Under the Table.”
Cate Moyle with “A Jeweled Anniversary.”
Michele Bazan Reed with “The Devil’s Accountant.”
Amazon Description:
With fiction from Jim Guigli, Glen Bush, Edward Lodi, Cate Moyle, Jay Andrew Connor, Bob Ritchie, Michele Bazan Reed, Eve Fisher, Michael Wiley, Joan Hall Hovey, J. T. Seate and Madeleine McDonald.
This is the first of several ‘Free 4 All’ collections
that were supposed to be themeless. However, with the number of submissions
that came in, it seems that this could be called an Angels & Devils
collection, mixing PI & Police alongside tales from the bad guys. Mind you,
that’s not to say that all the PIs & Police are Good Guys – though
hopefully this collection is not too NOIR for some.
Followers of the somewhat bent and twisted Crimeucopia
path will know that although we don’t deal with flash fiction as a rule, it is
a rule that we have sometimes broken. And let’s face it, if you cannot break
your own rules now and again, whose rules can you break?
Oh, wait, isn’t that the basis of the crime fiction
genre?
Oh dear….
As with all of these anthologies, we hope you’ll find
something that you immediately like, as well as something that takes you out of
your comfort zone – and puts you into a completely new one.
In other words, in the spirit of the Murderous Ink
Press motto:
You never know what you like until you read it.
Thursday, January 19, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: The Dogs of Beaumont Heights by Jim Winter
SMFS list member Jim Winter’s new book, The Dogs
of Beaumont Heights, was published earlier this week by Down & Out
Books. This is the second thriller in the series that began with Holland
Bay. The read is available in digital and print formats at the publisher,
Amazon,
and other vendors.
Publisher Description:
Fentanyl. The latest scourge of Monticello's street. A
detective, a street-level dealer, and an ambitious police official, it will
weave its way through their lives and change their fates.
For Detective Jessica Branson, it makes the house she
can't afford unlivable and unrentable. When her tenants overdose, one fatally,
her career teeters toward a crash.
For Marcus Lincoln, it's the latest product, his
ticket to the top of the Game as he moves up in the gang that still rules the
city's Holland Bay neighborhood. But one man stands in his way, and Linc holds
a grudge. Between making his anger known and building his new empire, he finds
himself on the bad side of the city's drug lord.
For Derek Roberts, the drug becomes a major headache
and a political football as he navigates between two ambitious candidates for
mayor. But it's also an opportunity to reach one of his longtime goals: Getting
rid of Jessica Branson.
An imprisoned drug boss, a scheming council member,
and a former Amish man running a junkyard complicate matters. But it all ties
together when a maligned breed of dog kills a little girl in the neighborhood
of Beaumont Heights.
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: A Cow Hunter's Lament and Other Stories by Larry D. Sweazy
Today is publication day for SMFS list member Larry D.
Sweazy’s new short story collection, A Cow Hunter's Lament and Other
Stories. Published by Five Star, the read of short stories and one
novella is available at Amazon
and other vendors.
SleuthSayers: Getting the Best of It by Robert Lopresti
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
SleuthSayers: Guest Post: You Can Go Home Again by James A. Hearn
Monday, January 16, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: The Optimal Solution by Dan Castro
Sunday, January 15, 2023
SMFS Member Publishing News: The Healing Garden by Shari Held
SMFS list member Shari Held’s short story, The Healing
Garden, appears in the January 11, 2023, issue of the weekly newsletter, Texas
Gardener’s Seeds. You can read it online for free here.