SleuthSayers: No More Guns, No More Tacos by Michael Bracken

SleuthSayers: No More Guns, No More Tacos: This month saw the release of the final episode of the Guns + Tacos novella anthology series, a project that Trey R. Barker and I created a...

Publication News: Frank Zafiro and Michael Bracken

Frank Zafiro and Michael Bracken have published two private eye novellas in a single ebook: "Hallmarks of the Job" (Zafiro) and "Aloha Boys" (Bracken).

Editorial Note: This post was updated on 7/20/2022 by SMFS President, Kevin R. Tipple, to fix a broken link and add missing tags. No changes were made to the text of the post or title as originally posted. 

SMFS Member Publishing News: Bev Vincent

SMFS list member Bev Vincent’s novella, The Ogilvy Affair: A novella is now out. It is available in eBook format at Amazon.

 

Synopsis:

First came the warning note.

Then someone took a shot at Clifford Ogilvy, publisher of the Harrisville Dispatch. The would-be killer missed, but he or she will likely try again.

Enter Quentin Sawyer, a private detective from Houston who responds to Ogilvy's request for an investigator to find out who's trying to kill him. Sawyer is a fish out of water at the luxurious Ogilvy mansion and in small town Harrisville. He soon discovers that his problem isn't finding someone who has a motive to murder his powerful client. Just about everyone in town has a reason to dislike Ogilvy.

Sawyer needs to narrow down the long list of suspects before the killer tries again.

SleuthSayers: Report to the Shareholders by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Report to the Shareholders: In 2020, I wrote 16 stories and sold seven. That's nothing compared to several other SleuthSayers, but it shows how I reinvented myself ...

SMFS Member Publishing News: Mark Troy

Today is publication day for Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera by Mark Troy. This is the concluding installment of Season Two of the Guns + Tacos series edited by Trey R. Barker and SMFS list member Michael Bracken. Published by Down & Out Books, the read is available at the publisher where there are numerous perks for subscribers, at Amazon, and elsewhere.

 

Synopsis:

Three shadowy denizens of an online gaming chatroom—an undocumented refugee, a socially isolated teenager, and a sexual predator—make an abandoned Chicago stockyard run red with blood once again.

Getting off the bus from El Paso, Balam, the Mayan jaguar, arrives in South Chicago, hungry, broke, and cold, hoping to find MagcPanda, a girl he had befriended online. Balam believes MagcPanda has fallen prey to an online predator and has been trafficked to Chicago. His only link to her is a laptop stolen from a refugee shelter. Wandering the streets of the alien city, he is dismayed to find that Chicago is fraught with more dangers than any he had experienced in Guatemala or on the trek though the mountains and deserts of Mexico. When gangbangers take his laptop, destroying his hopes of rescuing MagicPanda, Balam is ready to admit defeat, only to get help from an unlikely source—the owner of a taco truck whose food is inedible, but whose “special” is sought after. Armed with the “special,” Balam resumes the hunt which terminates in the abandoned killing field.

SleuthSayers: Novellas, the New Frontier by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: Novellas, the New Frontier: by Steve Liskow Ten years ago, I won the Black Orchid Novella Award, sponsored by the Wolfe Pack, AKA the Rex Stout Appreciation Society. ...

Guns + Tacos: New Anthology Series from Down & Out Books

Guns + Tacos: New Anthology Series from Down & Out Books

Mystery Fanfare: CHRISTMAS MYSTERY SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGIES & NOVELL...

Mystery Fanfare: CHRISTMAS MYSTERY SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGIES & NOVELL...: This year I've separated Christmas Mystery Short Stories and Novellas from the Christmas Mystery Novel lists . Since this is the fir...

SMFS Member Publication News: Gigi Pandian

SMFS list member Gigi Pandian’s new book, The Cambodian Curse and Other Stories: Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Short Story Collection has just been released. Published by Henery Press in print and digital formats, the book includes her Malice Domestic Agatha award winning short story, “The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn.” The book is available at the publisher, Amazon, and other vendors.

Amazon Synopsis:

A treasure trove of nine locked room mysteries from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Gigi Pandian, all set in the Jaya Jones world.

Appearing here for the first time, novelette The Cambodian Curse

When an ancient and supposedly cursed Cambodian sculpture disappears from an impenetrable museum, and the carving's owner is killed by an invisible assailant while a witness is a few feet away, historian Jaya Jones and her old nemesis Henry North team up to solve the baffling crime.

Stories included: "The Cambodian Curse," "The Hindi Houdini," "The Haunted Room," "The Library Ghost of Tanglewood Inn," "The Curse of Cloud Castle," "Tempest in a Teapot," "A Dark and Stormy Light," "The Shadow of the River," plus bonus novella Fool's Gold.

With an Introduction from New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King addressing why we love locked rooms, and a Foreword from impossible crime mystery historian Douglas G. Greene, teasing out the tradition of John Dickson Carr that Pandian is following. This collection is filled with ingenious stories of magic, mystery, and history.