Welcome to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine! Each issue of our print publication is packed with new mystery short stories — at least seven, varying in length from short-shorts to novellas — and one "Mystery Classic" — an outstanding tale from the genre's past. Every type of mystery fiction is represented, from the classic whodunit to the hardboiled tale to suspense — and everything in between! For a taste of what’s inside the print issue, see our story excerpts, author interviews, profiles of mystery bookstores, and a mystery puzzle. Subscribe today!
Breaking News! AHMM is teaming up with The Wolfe Pack, the official Nero Wolfe appreciation society, to sponsor a new annual writing prize, The Black Orchid Novella Award, to honor an unpublished work of fiction written in the tradition of the Nero Wolfe mystery stories by Rex Stout.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. For more information on the contest, including submission guidelines, go to www.NeroWolfe.org.
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Most people may try to live their lives well within their comfort zones, but there's nothing like murder to inject some discomfort. In I. J. Parker's "The Incense Murder," Sugawara Akitada, a clerk in the Ministry of Justice, in eleventh-century Japan, finds his personal life unsettled when a death occurs at the home of a relative. The murder of the overseer at a Southern plantation reveals all manner of uncomfortable truths in Eric Rutter's "Runaway," excerpted here. And John H. Dirckx's decidedly urban Detective Sergeant Cy Auburn is out of his element when he stumbles on a murder outside of his jurisdiction; "We may do things a little differently out here in the country," the sheriff warns him in "Real Men Die," "but we pretty much get the same results." And while two hitchhiking friends in Joseph B. Atkins's "Pickup on Route 66" (excerpted here) are prepared for the discomforts of the road, they never expected their trip to turn deadly.
In addition, Dan Warthman returns with a humorous caper, "There You Go, Sundance," while AHMM stalwart James Lincoln Warren introduces a charming and poignant Mystery Classic, Fritz Leiber's "Space-Time for Springers." Finally we hope you'll get comfortable with our regular features: the Mysterious Photograph contest, the always challenging mystery-themed puzzle, and Robert C. Hahn's reviews of the newest outings of his favorite characters in his "Booked & Printed" column.
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Anthony Award Nominee:
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Killing Time
by Jane K. Cleland
Art by Joel Spector
Driving up Ocean Avenue, which ran alongside New Hampshire's three miles of shoreline, I decided to play hooky.
Insteadof hot-footing it back to my company, Prescott's Antiques and Auctions,after acquiring a stellar collection of snow globes from a retiring professor, I was going to…
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Runaway
by Eric Rutter
Art by Edward Kinsella III
Zachary Todd didn't look at Hank Dixon's body. Hank looked awful in death, lying there on the floor of his cabin. His eyes stared blindly, bulging in a purple face that was frozen into a hideous grimace. His hands rested up near his neck, twisted into claws, doubtlessly raised to pry at the whip—his own whip—which had strangled the life out of him... |
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Pickup on Route 66
by Joseph B. Atkins
Art by Jorge Mascarenhas
Everything came to a dead stop in Oklahoma. For four hours we waited under a July sun with no luck.
"I think we been dropped off in hell," I told my buddy Mickey as we made our pact to take the first ride in either direction. So Mickey crossed the median to the eastbound side of I-40, and I stayed put...
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"Colorblind" by
Mike Wiecek,"The Mound Builders" by Eve Fisher,
"Constable Smith and the Bone Pointer" by
Rex Smith, and more!
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A Mysterious Photograph contest — Submit your 250-word story inspired by an imagination-stirring photograph. The winning story is published in a future issue.
An intriguing, and challenging, mystery-themed puzzle.
Booked and Printed — Book reviews of interest to mystery readers.
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