SMFS Member Publishing News: Lies in the Place of Truth: A Sitehuti and Nefer-Djenou-Bastet Novel by T. Lee Harris

SMFS list member T. Lee Harris reported today that her new book, Lies in the Place of Truth: A Sitehuti and Nefer-Djenou-Bastet Novel was published earlier this month. Published by Per Bastet Publications LLC, the read is available at Amazon.

 

Publisher Description:

At the end of the events surrounding the Heb Sed, all young scribe Sitehuti wanted to do was grab his cat and retreat to his family home in the Place of Truth, the workers’ village for the Great Place, the Royal necropolis. That didn’t happen. Now, with the funeral and burial of Prince Amunhotep looming, he gets his wish — sort of.

The Prince’s murder brings many changes. Among those is Sitehuti’s temporary appointment as Royal Scribe in charge of the burial. However, all is not peaceful in the necropolis. Tombs are being robbed. People are disappearing — among the vanished is one of Captain Djedmose’s Royal Medjay Guards.

Things are also amiss at Mansion of Millions of Years, Ramesses II’s sprawling funerary complex and administrative center on the west bank of the river. To the Pharaoh and Crown Prince, the solution is simple: send Sitehuti and Nefer-Djenou-Bastet to solve the mysteries.

Captain Djedmose disagrees. Magic Cat or no, he wants Sitehuti as far away from danger as possible.

But IS it possible?

Available in print and Kindle editions.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Waterproofing by Abe Margel

 

SMFS list member Abe Margel reported that his short story, Waterproofing, was published at Freedom Fiction Journal.  You can read the story online for free here.

SMFS Member Publishing News: The Home Front by John M. Floyd

SMFS list member John M. Floyd reported that his short story, The Home Front, was published at Punk Noir Magazine. You can read the piece for free online here.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Good Shoes by Twist Phelan

SMFS list member Twist Phelan reported that her short story, Good Shoes, appears in the anthology, Coolest American Stories 2025. Published by Coolest Stories Press earlier this month, the book is available 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.

The fourth volume of the annual anthology that’s been praised nationwide by readers and numerous award-winning and bestselling authors, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2025 exudes its editors’ philosophy 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 2025 features a romp of a crime story by multiple Thriller Award winning author Twist Phelan; a poignant yet surprising story about prison life by Pushcart Prize winner Mathieu Cailler; and NYC veteran author Francine Witte's hilarious rom-com about a woman who's obsessed with love and murder both.

And since interesting storytelling―rather than a bunch of publishing credits―matters most to story-hungry readers, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2025 also includes rising star Demond J Blake's Kerouacian, laugh-out-loud tale about a search for meaning in modern-day Southern California; a tense contemporary spy story by gutsy author Philip Cesario; and a shocking portrayal of the emotional effects of American cancel culture by the Canadian writer Mehdi M. Kashani―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: Norwegian Wood by K.L. Abrahamson

SMFS list member K.L. Abrahamson reported that her short story, Norwegian Wood, was published at The Saturday Evening Post. You can read the piece for free online here.

SMFS Member Publishing News: The One I Loved by Elizabeth Dearborn

 

SMFS list member Elizabeth Dearborn reported that her short story, The One I Loved, was published at Punk Noir Magazine. You can read the piece for free online here.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Jim Thomsen's Photographs

SMFS list member Jim Thomsen reports that his photographs are published in Rock and a Hard Place, Issue 12: Fall 2024. Published by Rock and a Hard Place Press, the read is available at Amazon.

 

Amazon Description:

Beowulf for Dummies . . . and loan sharks.
When the gun is the hero, that's noir.
Revenge is a dish best served with a smile.
When community services is more dangerous than doing time.

In issue 12, Rock and a Hard Place goes international. We go for the horror. We even sneak in a little paranormal. But you can count on us—we never lose the noir. With stories by: Craig Francis Coates, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Bob Ellis, Nils Gilbertson, Michael A. Gonzales, Dave Hangman, Nick Kolakowski, M. Palmer, Ivan Richardson, Mark Rogers, S.A. Smith, and Melissa Witcher.

Rock and a Hard Place is the literary magazine that knows that a dozen may be dirty, but 12 is just another way to say you've got two good graves . . . or three bad ones.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Who’s at the Door? by Abe Margel

SMFS list member Abe Margel reported that his short story, Who’s at the Door?, was published at the Academy of the Heart and Mind. You can read the story online for free here.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Deeds of Darkness: Stories by William Burton McCormick

SMFS list member William Burton McCormick reported today that his book, Deeds of Darkness: Stories, is now out from Level Best Books-Level Short. The read is available at Amazon.

 

Amazon Description:

Deeds of Darkness is the best short fiction by award-winning author William Burton McCormick. A collection of twenty-four globetrotting stories of suspense, mystery, crime, espionage, horror, and historical genres from the pages of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Mystery Magazine, and elsewhere. Deeds of Darkness includes stories nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Shamus Award, Thriller Award, and five Derringer Award-nominated stories. Also included are two unabridged novellas, "Demon in the Depths," which finished second in the Ellery Queen's Readers' Poll for 2021, and "House of Tigers," named to the Honor Roll for both the Black Orchid Novel Award and the Mysterious Bookshop's Best Mystery Stories of 2023. Deeds of Darkness takes readers from war-torn Eastern Europe to gangster America and deep below the frozen seas of the Arctic Ocean. From modern tales of crime to World War II espionage to ghost stories in shadowy Odessa and murder in Ancient Rome, every flavor of suspense and adventure awaits within.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Under the Black Flag - Piracy Is Not a Victimless Crime: A Bart Lasiter Mystery by Jim Guigli

SMFS list member Jim Guigli reported that his mystery, Under the Black Flag - Piracy Is Not a Victimless Crime: A Bart Lasiter Mystery is out. Published by ‎Labrador, the read is available at Amazon and other vendors. 

 

Amazon Description:

Bart Lasiter, ex-Berkeley California street cop and new Private Eye, sees his dream when a beautiful blonde dressed in black enters his Sacramento Old Town live-in office and offers him more cash than he had ever imagined earning.

She begs Bart to free her kidnapped husband by just delivering the ransom . . . alone . . . in a small boat . . . out in the deep center of Lake Tahoe . . . at night . . . to pirates . . . and please, . . . no police.

On his drive from Sacramento up I-80 East through the Sierras to Nevada and his client's Tahoe waterfront home, Bart encounters and follows three aging, outlaw bikers who fancy themselves as pirates, and who might lead him to the kidnappers.

At Lake Tahoe, Bart plunges into an exotic, unfamiliar world of yacht clubs, classic boat shows, casinos, and walled-in waterfront mansions. And romance?

Is this case Bart's big chance for PI success? Can dreams come true?

SMFS Member Publishing News: So You're Stuck in a Time Loop by Brandon Barrows

SMFS list member Brandon Barrows reported that his short story, So You're Stuck in a Time Loop, was recently published in Ruth and Ann's Guide to Time Travel, Volume II. Published by Celestial Echo Press, the read is available at Amazon and other vendors.

 

Publisher Description:

This anthology follows the same theme as Ruth and Ann's Guide to Time Travel Volume I. In this anthology, 30 authors provide their amazing visions on the theme of time travel, showing their storytelling skills while delighting readers. These stories take readers to the past, alternate present, and the future. 

SMFS Member Publishing News: Skeeter Done Shot Billy Bob by John M. Floyd

SMFS list member John M. Floyd reported that his short story, Skeeter Done Shot Billy Bob, appears in the recently released anthology, Shamus and Anthony Commit Capers: Ten Tales of Criminals, Crooks, and Culprits. Published by Level Best Books - Level Short, the book is available at Amazon.

 

Amazon Description:

Mystery lovers beware because in Shamus and Anthony Commit Capers some of today’s most prestigious award-winning mystery and suspense authors are quicker than the eye—and the law! The sleight of hand, the second-story black bag job, and the high-stakes heist have never been more cunning, clever, and crookedly outrageous. In Shamus and Anthony these wily masters of mystery aren’t just up to their usual baffling bag of artful tricks in this exciting collection of ten original tales—they’re one squirrelly step ahead of the fuzz with bushels of hot new hustles and hi-jinks.


Stories by: Marcia Muller, Lori Armstrong, Libby Cudmore, John M. Floyd, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Verena Rose, John Shepphird, Marcia Talley, and Bill Pronzini

SMFS Member Publishing News: The Gardener's Plot: A Mystery by Deborah J. Benoit

 

SMFS list member Deborah J. Benoit reported that her new book, The Gardener's Plot: A Mystery, was released yesterday. The debut mystery was a winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. Published by Minotaur Books, the book is available at Amazon and other vendors.

 

Amazon Description:

A woman helps set up a community garden in the Berkshires, only to find a body in one of the plots on opening day.

After life threw Maggie Walker a few curveballs, she’s happy to be back in the small, Berkshires town where she spent so much time as a child. Marlowe holds many memories for her, and now it also offers a fresh start. Maggie has always loved gardening, so it’s only natural to sign on to help Violet Bloom set up a community garden.

When opening day arrives, Violet is nowhere to be found, and the gardeners are restless. Things go from bad to worse when Maggie finds a boot buried in one of the plots… and there’s a body attached to it. Suddenly, the police are looking for a killer and they keep asking questions about Violet. Maggie doesn’t believe her friend could do this, and she’s going to dig up the dirt needed to prove it.

The Gardener’s Plot takes readers to the heart of the Berkshires and introduces amateur sleuth Maggie Walker in Deborah J. Benoit’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Victims of Habit by Bryce Heckman

SMFS list member Bryce Heckman reported that his short story, Victims of Habit, was published at the Mystery Tribune. You can read the story online for free here.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Misconception by Denise Johnson

 

SMFS list member Denise Johnson reported that her new book, Misconception, was released today. Published by Latchkey Publishing, the book is available at Amazon and other vendors.

 

Amazon Description:

Cassie Nichols wants a baby. Badly.

She’s certain a baby will anchor the crumbling relationship with her husband, Jake, who she suspects is having an affair.

But after a miscarriage and continued trouble getting pregnant leads the couple down the frustrating and expensive road of in vitro fertilization, Cassie finds herself running out of time.

Pumped on hormones, fueled by anxiety, and believing it is the only way to save her marriage, she does the unthinkable to ensure a viable pregnancy.

Now, the happy family she envisioned remains out of reach and is instead wrought with lies, deception, and murder.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Twenty Centuries by James D.F. Hannah

SMFS list member James D.F. Hannah reported that his short story, Twenty Centuries, appears in the anthology, Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir. Recently published by Soho Crime, the book is available from the publisher, Amazon, and other vendors.

 

Amazon Description:

The perfect holiday gift for the crime fiction lover in your life!

Curated by New York Times bestselling author Tod Goldberg, this collection of eleven delightful and twisted Hanukkah capers will entertain you through all eight nights of the Festival of Lights.

In Stefanie Leder’s “Not a Dinner Party Person,” an unstable pharmaceutical rep tries not to kill anyone at her family dinner on the last night of Hanukkah; in Ivy Pochoda’s “Johnny Christmas,” a taciturn Gulf War vet commissions a tattoo from a man he knew from his prison days, a man not named Christmas but Goldfarb; in David L. Ulin’s “Shamash,” it’s the last night of Hanukkah, and a live-at-home adult son considers doing something drastic to get out of his elderly father’s Upper West Side apartment; in James D.F. Hannah’s “Twenty Centuries,” a pair of detectives solve a curiously unprompted murder during the holiday season.

This captivating collection contains old-school slapstick comedy, hardboiled noir, gritty procedurals, and poignant reminders of the meaning of Hanukkah, offering something for almost every reader willing to take the journey through these twisted tales.

With stories by: Ivy Pochoda, David L. Ulin, James D.F. Hannah, Lee Goldberg, Nikki Dolson, J.R. Angelella, Liska Jacobs, Gabino Iglesias, Stefanie Leder, and Jim Ruland, plus a foreword and story by Tod Goldberg.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Anything For You by Brandon Barrows

SMFS list member Brandon Barrows reported that his short story, Anything For You, was recently published in JOURN-E: The Journal of Imaginative Literature; vol. 3, no. 2. The issue is available for purchase at LuLu.

 

Publisher Description:

JOURN-E: The Journal of Imaginative Literature is a semi-annual compendium of fiction, poetry, and illustration across the several genres of the High Imagination: Adventure, Detection & Mystery, Fantasy, Horror & the Supernatural, and Science Fiction. It is published on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes each year.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Sharyn Kolberg with The Gate

 

SMFS list member Sharyn Kolberg reported that her short story, Sharyn Kolberg with The Gate, appears in Black Cat Weekly #165. Published by Wildside Press, the issue is available here in digital format.

 

Publisher Description:

It’s our final Halloween issue of the year—with lots of treats and only a few tricks. Headlining this issue is Bram Stoker’s “lost” horror tale, “Gibbet Hill,” which a researcher recently discovered in an Irish newspaper supplement from 1890. (It wasn’t listed in any of Stoker’s bibliographies, and it created quite a stir among horror aficionados.) I’ve very carefully edited it, correcting typos and a few dropped words, and fully annotated it. I think you’ll enjoy it.

   We also have original tales from bestselling authors Donna Andrews (thanks to Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman) and Sharyn Kolberg (thanks to Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken), and one from newcomer Christopher Lawrence Froehlich, who makes his Black Cat Weekly debut. Plus a pair of modern classics from British masters John S. Glasby and E.C. Tubb, plus a nautical thriller by Alan B. Le May—who is most famous as the author of the classic Westerns The Searchers (1954) and The Unforgiven (1957).

   Our novels this issue are Allen Upward’s The Club of Masks—a rare British mystery from the Golden Age—and E.H. Visiak’s pirate fantasy, The Haunted Island.

   Here’s the complete lineup—

 

Cover Art: Ron Miller

 

NOVELS

 

The Club of Masks, by Allen Upward

   There’s murder at a scandalous London club where decadent masked aristocrats mingle…

 

The Haunted Island, by E.H. Visiak

   Being the History of an Adventure to an Island in the Remote South Sea. Of a Wizard there. Of his Pirate Gang; His Treasure; His Combustible…

 

SOLVE-IT-YOURSELF MYSTERY

 

“The Purloined Pumpkin,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]

   Can you solve the mystery before the detective? All the clues are there!

 

SHORT STORIES

 

“The Gate,” by Sharyn Kolberg [Michael Bracken Presents short story]

   After years of tension and escalating fights with her husband George, a simple accident turns deadly.

 

“The Grim,” by Donna Andrews [Barb Goffman Presents short story]

   A rogue cemetery guardian causes chaos, chasing souls and scaring mourners. A paranormal expert intervenes…

 

“Ghost Lanterns,” by Alan B. Le May

   Sailors begin disappearing as “ghost lanterns” float across the deck. Is the ship cursed?

 

“Gibbet Hill, by Bram Stoker

   The recently discovered “lost” story from the Dracula author—and it’s a supernatural fantasy!

 

“The Other Seance,” by John S. Glasby

   When a famous medium (and skilled charlatan is challenged to prove his powers, his tricks work too well…

 

“Death Plays Baseball,” by Christopher Lawrence Froehlich

   When Death and Nostalgia swap jobs to prove whose job is harder, a cosmic game of baseball leads to unexpected chaos.



“Museum Piece,” by E.C. Tubb

   In a future where war and violence are ancient relics, one man relives fantasies of military conquest…

SMFS Member Publishing News: Sedna by Janet Parkinson

 

SMFS list member Janet Parkinson reported that her short story, Sedna, was recently published online at Eunoia Review. You can read it for free here.

SMFS Member Publishing News: Sgt. Ford's Widow by Paul A. Barra

SMFS list member Paul A. Barra reported that his book, Sgt. Ford's Widow, was recently published by The Permanent Press. The book is available at the publisher.

 

Publisher Description:

An oddball Western love story, Gil Ford stationed in Vietnam finds a young woman who has been badly wounded during a fierce skirmish. Tran Thi Linh has been discarded by both sides and Gil Ford, a compassionate man, decides to bring her back to his home town in eastern Wyoming.  Murder, mayhem, kidnapping, and vandalism are part of the landscape. Gil begins to realize that  Tran has an uncanny ability to read people, their motives and their unsavory violent ambitions. In the end, Tran has become a criminal justice legend and Gil is rewarded in many ways.