Welcome to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine!

MYSTERY PLACE BOOKS announces a new DIGITAL ANTHOLOGY: Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents: 13 Tales of New American Gothic. Get your copy today! BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR... We are now hosting the very best of crime fiction podcasts! Visit our Podcast page to hear great mystery stories from our pages, complete with exclusive author interviews and fun tidbits. The digital version of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine is now available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Fictionwise, Magzter, Sony, and Zinio. If you haven't read them yet, check out our Barry-nominated short stories, available free on the Deadly Pleasures website! BLACK ORCHID NOVELLA AWARD AHMM and The Wolfe Pack, the official Nero Wolfe appreciation society, team up each year to sponsor an annual writing contest that seeks to honor an unpublished work of fiction written in the tradition of the Nero Wolfe mystery stories by Rex Stout. Rex Stout was a master of the novella form and published dozens of novellas featuring the corpulent and irascible detective Nero Wolfe and his sidekick Archie Goodwin. Today, the novella is uncommon, though AHMM has a long tradition of publishing novellas. More information on the contest, including submission guidelines, can be found here.


	Burning Daylight By David Edgerley Gates Art by Andrew Wright The two boys had been fishing the upper reaches of Kettle Creek, where glacial runoff from up in the Absarokas fed a loop of shallow pools, like spoons, the water very fast and cold. Kettle ponds, they were called, which gave the creek its name. The trout weren’t that big, but they were quick to hit the lure. It was high summer, the air thick with insects, mosquitoes the size of a man’s thumb, bees heavy with pollen, butterflies near the end of their breeding cycle, and they drew birds, swifts, and vireos. The day was hot and still, but crowded with life. Jesse Greyeyes was ten. His first cousin and best friend, Toby Pete, known as Rabbit, was nine, or nine and a half, he would have said. They wereNorthern Cheyenne, but they weren’t reservation Indians. They lived on the economy, outside of Limestone, on the edge of theGallatinNational Forest. They’d fished and hunted these mountains since they were six, when they were old enough to carry a ten-pound pack, and understood their own responsibility. Both of them were excellent shots with a .22 bolt-action, although neither one of them was allowed to carry a weapon at their age without adult supervision, but it might be pointed out that they were probably more grown up about guns than a few grown-ups they knew. . . . Read more

	Ghost Negligence By John Shepphird Art by Robyn Hyzy “This isn’t your run-of-the-mill slip and fall,” Oscar said before sampling his Canadian Club on the rocks. He licked his lips and added, “It’s more like . . . a spook and fall.” I asked the obvious, “And this woman is suing the hotel?” “For gross negligence. It’s a case built on disclosure. Management distributed a memo directing staff not to talk about ghosts and strange occurrences to the guests. And the plaintiff is submitting this memo as evidence.” “Interesting,” I said, and chewed on that thought while sipping my draft beer. Even though it was raining, we met at Gulliver’s in theMarinaoverlooking yachts docked outside. Oscar defends insurance companies against fraud and, on occasion, he relies on my investigative services. For that I am grateful. Oscar got me into this racket. His old-school style means I usually get a few cold ones along with my retainer. “Ghost negligence, so where does that come in?” I said, trying to lighten the mood with a joke. . . . Read more