Short Stories/Novellas

"Not many of us would admit, even to ourselves, that we had actually wished for something awful to befall anybody we knew. On the other hand, if we've ever felt exploited by an acquaintance, or undervalued in a job that we felt trapped in-if we've experienced an unappreciative boss, a backstabbing co-worker, a jealous rival, a manipulative friend, a faithless lover, an intrusive neighbor, or even a controlling homeowners' association board . . . well, you get the picture. "Each of us has doubtless gone a round or two with someone whom we secretly felt deserved more than a small dose of Divine Justice. This probably explains why most of us can't help but smile upon hearing that somebody who "done us wrong" has, at long last, gotten his "just desserts." In extreme cases (that is, if you're anything like me) you might even have gone so far, in the past, as to uncork a small split of champagne! "I suspect there'll be plenty of bubbly flowing as you relish reading about twenty of literature's most deserving villains, who get their comeuppance in Chesapeake Crimes: They Had It Comin'." --Katharine Neville, from the Foreword

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”!