|
|
 |

Publisher of the world's leading crime and mystery fiction since 1941.
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Here, you will find highlights of each month's print issue – including excerpts from our award-winning short stories, our book-review column The Jury Box, and The Mystery Crossword.The place to be for a good mystery!
Subscribe today.
|
 |
 |

|
|
Our March/April issue reveals human nature at its worst, and at its best. An unexpected vigilante is killing town miscreants in broad daylight in "Cleaning Up," Steven Steinbock's Department of First Stories debut; a P.I. trails a girl in a painting from her loving, trailer park home to the drug-laden art scene of the Big Apple in Robert S. Levinson's "The Girl in the Golden Gown"; and a romantic one-night stand is as dark and ugly the next day as it was uplifting the night before (see Passport to Crime's "Monopoly," by Judith Merchant). Good Samaritans also make an appearance: a small village's minister looks out for his flock (in his own unique way) in Val McDermid's "The Ministry of Whisky"; a freshly retired church tour guide, sensing something amiss one night, returns to the site and walks into danger in Christine Poulson's "A Tour of the Tower"; and a novelist goes after the bad guy when his neighbor's child is snatched from her driveway in Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "The Disappearance of Wicked."
Elsewhere, we find that believing the past is behind is sometimes foolish. A man returns to his hometown after decades away, to confront the lurking shadows of his childhood, in Edward D. Hoch's "The Faceless Thing"; amateur sleuth Owen Keane follows a clue found in discarded possessions to uncover a dead man's secret life during World Ward II, in Terence Faherty's "The Seven Sorrows"; a Michigan construction crew unexpectedly discovers a new angle to a 1969 breakout while converting an old city jail into a shopping center in Doug Allyn's "Days of Rage"; ransom money from a past kidnapping that supposedly ended in murder gets traced in Bruce Rubenstein's Black Mask entry "The Widow's Garden Party"; and a pair of estate-sale hunters think they've found something invaluable in an old trunk when suspicious characters start stalking them in Brian Muir's "On the Banks of the Khorad Dur."
Filling out the issue are several tales that demonstrate that best-laid plans are sometimes the most flawed: "Satan Rides the 5:15" by Vincent Lardo, in which two actors conspire against their director; "It All Adds Up" by Thomas Kaufman, about a con man who's running a lucrative life-coaching scam; "When, He Wondered" by Lynne Barrett, in which a Florida real-estate developer tries to fake his own death; "Death by Misadventure" by John Buchanan, in which a wife's careful infidelity is discovered by chance; and "Rearview Mirror" by Art Taylor, in which a road trip through the Southwest tests a young couple's resolve to quit the criminal life.
Subscribe today!
|
 |
ANNOUNCING….. a new addition to our EQMM website! Audio readings and dramatizations by the world's leading suspense writers. Visit our new Podcast page today .
|
ELLERY QUEEN PRESENTS: CHARLAINE HARRIS' "Dead Giveaway" Charlaine Harris' "Dead Giveaway' was published in our December 2001 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and we are delighted to offer it here for free . |
|
|
|
| Sample a story from KGB Bar's Women of Mystery event, sponsored by EQMM! |
Silverfish by S. J. Rozan
"What kind of a fish is that, anyway?" "What?" "A silverfish. Is it, like, all silvery?" Silverfish blew out a breath and tried to be patient. You had to be patient with Lady Mary. "Not a fish. It's a bug." Lady Mary giggled. "You call yourself after a bug?" She checked her lipgloss once more and snapped her mirror away. "Must be a pretty bug." "It's ugly. Lots of legs and it slithers." "Then why—" " 'Cause of my hair..."
|
|
|
|
The Ministry of Whisky by Val McDermid Art by Laurie Harden
The Crime Writers Association has just awarded Val McDermid its Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement, one of the most prestigious awards in the genre. Her latest Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan mystery, Fever of the Bone, the sixth in the series, came out in the U.S. in February, from Sphere (an imprint of Little, Brown). EQMM readers will be familiar with the characters from our January issue, where they appeared in the story "Happy Holidays." Many readers will also have seen the recent PBS Masterpiece Contemporary presentation of Val McDermid's A Place of Execution, which is now available on DVD.
There's two things everybody knows about John French the minister—he likes a dram, and his wife won't have a drop in the house . That's why he spends as much time as possible out and about, making himself at home with his parishioners. Even the strictest teetotallers, the dry alcoholics, and the three English families understand they have to keep whisky in the house for the minister...
|
|
A Tour of the Tower by Christine Poulson Art by Jason Eckhardt
The five o'clock tour was the last of the day.
Sadly, for Miriam it was to be the last one ever.
The grey-haired American—in his sixties, Miriam judged, around her own age—had been the first to arrive. He was wearing a cream linen jacket: good material and very nicely cut. Miriam's working life had been spent in the menswear department of a big store and even now she couldn't help noticing what people were wearing. She glanced down at her chocolate- brown linen shirt and trousers: a devil to iron but worth it...
|
 |

Edward D. Hoch, Val McDermid, Doug Allyn, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and more…
|
 |
|
 |
|
|