This February, love was in the air--along with more gripping stories from the members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society! Here's a guide to just some of the cunning plots, surprising twists, nerve-shattering suspense, and sweeping emotions our talented writers brought to readers last month. Even in the shortest month of the year, SMFS delivers!
- Congratulations to SMFS member (and Golden Derringer lifetime achievement winner) Barb Goffman, whose stories "A Matter of Trust" (from the anthology Three Strikes--You're Dead!) and "The Postman Always Flirts Twice" (from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy) were BOTH nominated for the Agatha Award for best short story of 2024! Incredibly, Barb has been nominated for this award fifteen years in a row, racking up multiple wins along the way and cementing her status as one of the finest writers in the field.
- Also nominated for an Agatha, in the category of best nonfiction, is Writing the Cozy Mystery: Authors' Perspectives on Their Craft, including contributions from SMFS members Edith Maxwell, Kathleen Marple Kalb, and Leslie Budewitz. This one belongs on every writer's shelf!
- On sale now, the March/April issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, as always, includes a number of SMFS members. Don't miss Edith Maxwell's "While the Iron is Hot," a dark tale of COVID-era obsession. G. M. Malliet brings us "The Unwanted Guest," an Elizabethan-era mystery featuring Mary Queen of Scots. And in Lori Rader-Day's "The Woman from Rolling Stone," a music rep gambling on a long-missing artist's work makes a surprising connection at a launch party.
- Meanwhile, over at Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Gabriela Stiteler serves up "Quick Turnaround," in which we learn that easy money is rarely as easy as it seems.
- Another Golden Derringer recipient, Josh Pachter, has coedited (along with K. L. Murphy) Crime in the Old Dominion, the new anthology from the Central Virginia chapter of Sisters in Crime. The volume includes Pachter's own "The Perfect Job," in which a teacher in the Virginia prison system has a life-threatening encounter with a former student. Also featured is Kathryn Prater Bomey's "House Arrest," in which a body turns up in a newly purchased home.
- In Chuck Brownman's "Her Smile Cuts Deep," published in the seventh volume of Hoosier Noir, a man working at a meat processing plan discovers what the woman he loves is really doing, thinking and planning. The same issue brings us Zakariah Johnson's "Flight," in which a mother and child navigate the aftermath of a disaster.
- Chuck Brownman could also be found dealing out killer flash fiction in February at Punk Noir Magazine with "A Valentine's Day Surprise," alongside Elizabeth Dearborn's "Bradycardia," M. E. Proctor's "Final Cut," Jessica Slee's "Galentine's Day," and Kathryn Prater Bomey's "Meet Me at the Railroad Tracks." All these writers demonstrate you don't need a lot of words to deliver a powerful punch of a tale!
- Yet more terrific flash fiction is to be found in the February issue of Pulp Asylum, including Paul Ryan O'Connor's "Agua Fantasma."
- Jessica Slee also dazzles with a longer story at Shotgun Honey, with her "Lucky Number." Is losing the lottery the worst thing that can happen?
- And going longer yet, donalee Moulton will grab you in her novel Bind, in which a missing watch at a yoga studio is just the start of the troubles.
- Ever notice how a great writer can craft a masterful story around a seemingly trivial premise? David H. Hendrickson demonstrates with "The Floater" at Pulphouse Magazine. A floater in the eye of a cantankerous, hypochondriac old man is just a floater--or is it?
- David also demonstrates that no one genre can contain him with his new collection of romance stories, Cape Cod Chips, Wiener Dogs, and Swiping Left: Stories of Sweet Romance. Valentine's Day may be over, but love stories this good are suitable for any time of the year!
- If your Valentine's was less than ideal, you might be interested in the Dark Moon Rising anthology of anti-Valentine's poetry and prose, Piece by Piece, including Michael J. Ciaraldi's "No Killer App."
- Speaking of collections, Debra H. Goldstein delivers a powerhouse assembly of eighteen tales ranging from cozy to dark in With Our Bellies Full and the Fire Dying: Tales of Sinning and Redemption. Sure to be one of the standout collections of the year (and dig that fantastic title!), this White City Press volume includes a number of stories that won or were nominated for awards including the Agatha, Anthony and Derringer (and while we're on the topic of White City Press and awards, congrats to them for the top-ten finish of (I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight: Crime Fiction Inspired by One-Hit Wonders in the Critters Workshop poll for best anthologies of 2024).
- In Diana Deverell's clever "Guilt Trip," one of the featured stories in issue 21 of Mystery, Crime, and Mayhem, a gun control advocate hires a security pro--but insists she carry no weapons.
- G. M. Malliet's "Victory Garden" and "Something Blue" were originally published in EQMM, but now these gripping stories of marriages that take wrong turns are available as stand-alone ebooks from this gifted, Agatha-winning writer.
- In issue 13 of Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, Raymond J. Brash has a story of "Doubles" and Gabriela Stiteler's "The Cottage" relates the story of a vacation gone very, very wrong.
- Guilty Crime Story Magazine also released issue 13 in February, with a highlight being M. E. Proctor's "The Ability to Swing," about a boy's involvement in baseball--and crime. Online, Guilty brings us Vinnie Hansen's unforgettable "Eavesdropper."
- Yellow Mama brings us Shari Held's "Just Like Old Times," about a "retired" hit man, and James H. Lewis's "The Night Caller," in which a woman is harassed by mysterious calls from her late husband's phone. Spooky stuff for discerning readers!
- Meanwhile, over at Tough, Shari Held continues her winning streak with "Come Sundown," in which a sheriff with Alzheimer's has one last chance to be a hero.
- Kings River Life celebrated Valentine's Day with Jane Limprecht's "General Delivery," a romance that offers a delightfully unexpected twist.
- Turning back to nonfiction for a moment, SMFS member Mark Coggins, writing at The Rap Sheet, highlights the underappreciated relationship between Raymond Chandler and San Francisco in "Whose Town Is It Anyway?"
- John M. Floyd is one of the most prolific writers in the history of short mystery fiction, so it hardly seems fair that he's also one of the best. In "The Warden's Game," the cover story from Black Cat Weekly #179, he spins the tale of a mysterious stranger in a remote Alaskan town ruled by fear.
- Just a week later, Black Cat Weekly #180 delivered "Undertoad" by Marcelle Dubé, in which a cryptic message sends a woman on a race to save her granddaughter.
- And in Black Cat Weekly #182, Rob Lopresti gives us "That One Friend," in which a mother gets a late-night phone call that her son is at the police station.
- At the Mysteries To Die For podcast, Kathleen Marple Kalb offers up the colorful yarn "The Last Diamond," in which the auction of a legendary jewel becomes more complicated than anyone expects. Great listen for your walks and drives, and be sure to check out other episodes featuring SMFS members!
- And finally, SMFS warmly congratulates the six 2024 crime anthologies which have been named the finalists for our first-ever Best Anthology Derringer Award. The finalists are Devil's Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024 (eds. Susan Oleksiw, Ang Pompano, and Leslie Wheeler), Friend of the Devil: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead (ed. Josh Pachter), Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense (ed. Judy Penz Sheluk), Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology (eds. Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman), New York State of Crime: Murder New York Style 6 (ed. D. M. Barr and Joseph R. G. De Marco), and The 13th Letter (ed. Donna Carrick). Voting will be in April, so there's plenty of time to catch up on this batch of fabulous books.
