Short Stories/Novellas

A short story from the Shamus, Ellery Queen's Readers Choice and Derringer award-winning author. Do you think you’ll be able to guess the shocking ending of MIND PRISON? In this mind-bending mix of science fiction and noir, a renowned scientist, Dr. Graham Winston, is developing an ingenious and, some might say, horrifying technology that will revolutionize prison. He’s close to a breakthrough, except that he finds himself distracted by his beautiful mistress… and thoughts of murder. “MIND PRISON is a dandy tale of hubris and horror that both Philip K. Dick and O. Henry would heartily endorse.” Lee Goldberg “MIND PRISON is a mix of science fiction and noir as diverting as it is surprising.” Max Allan Collins “A taut, dark, searing science fiction story filled with noir atmospherics--greed, sexual betrayal, murder--that evokes the best of Philip K. Dick's grim near future.” Ed Gorman, “MIND PRISON features a novel and Orwellian solution to the problem of overcrowding in American prisons.” Publishers Weekly

July/August 2021 issue. Cover art by Bradley Clark. We continue our celebration of EQMM’s eightieth year with an issue dedicated to the classical mystery. July/August 2021 is bookended by stories that take place in one of the most iconic of puzzle-story settings: see “The Locked Room Library” by Gigi Pandian and “The Body in the Bee Library” by Jon L. Breen. Other fair-play head-scratchers include “The White Star” by G.M. Malliet (set in an English manor), “Julius Katz and the Two Cousins” by Dave Zeltserman, the medical mystery “Not So Fast, Dr. Quick” by Elvie Simons, a lyrical impossible-crime case, in Passport to Crime, from Awasaka Tsumao (“Fox’s Wedding”), and the mystery of a homeless man’s disappearance, investigated by a homeless P.I. (“Sweeps Week” by Richard Helms). Elsewhere in the issue, suspense abounds, to varied backdrops: an operating room (“Bone Marrow Donor” by Joyce Carol Oates), a concert hall (“The Concert” by Ragnar Jónasson and Víkingur Ólaffson), a winery (“The Fraud of Dionysus” by Smita Harish Jain), a comic-book convention (“What’s Wrong With Harley Quinn?” by Barbara Allan), within a character’s very own mind (“Sycamore Acres” by Richard Dooling), a prison (“Bad Chemistry” by John G. Wimer), a dying Texas town (“The Last Man in Lafarge” by current Edgar Award nominee Joseph S. Walker), and right at home (“Next Door” by Kate Ellis). Speaking of home and family, the theme runs strong in other of this issue’s entries, especially “Homecoming” by Janice Law, the Department of First Stories tales “When the Dust Settles” by Tehra Peace and “A Truck Full of Illegal Fireworks” by Michael Grimala, and a noir story for Black Mask by Brendan DuBois (“Family Love”). Our columns—The Jury Box, Blog Bytes, and Stranger Than Fiction—round it all out, the latter with an account of Victorian “detective-fever”!