Great New Reads From the Short Mystery Fiction Society

There’s nothing better than getting lost in a great story, and over the past several weeks the talented writers of the Short Mystery Fiction Society have provided readers with a wealth of terrific new publications.  From cozy to noir and all points between–if you like crime fiction on the cutting edge, SMFS has you covered!  Read on to learn about some hot-off-the-presses tales you won’t want to miss.  And remember, if short crime fiction matters to you, joining SMFS is always free.  We’d love to have you!

• Bouchercon brought the world of mystery fiction to New Orleans in September, including the release of this year’s Bouchercon anthology, BLOOD ON THE BAYOU: CASE CLOSED, edited by Don Bruns.  As always, SMFS members were well represented in this annual showcase, including Eric Beckstrom (“Six Cylinder Totem”), Robert Lopresti (“The Unreliable Narrator”), and Joseph S. Walker (“Final Edit”).  Whether you made it to the Big Easy or not, this collection mertis a place of honor on your shelf!

• And what would go better alongside it on that shelf than this year’s installment of THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP PRESENTS THE BEST MYSTERY STORIES OF THE YEAR, from series editor Otto Penzler and this year’s editor, superstar John Grisham?  Making the cut for this prestigious anthology this year are SMFS members V. P. Chandler (“Under the Blackjack Tree”), Tracy Falenwolfe (“Jamming at Jollies”), James Hearn (“Totality”), Billie Livingston (“Same Old Song”), Kai Lovelace (“Only a Story”), Karen Odden (“Her Dangerously Clever Hands”), Anna Scotti (“A New Weariness”), Shelagh Smith (“Snapshot”), Lamont A. Turner (“The Lost and the Lonely”), Joseph S. Walker (“Run and Gun”), and Andrew Welsh-Huggins (“Through Thick and Thin”).  Phew!  That’s almost half of the stories in the book from our merry crew!
  

• The hits just keep on coming in LUNATIC FRINGE: MORE CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY ONE-HIT WONDERS, edited by J. Alan Hartman.  Taking a spin on the dance floor are SMFS stalwarts Adam Meyer, John M. Floyd, Karen Keeley, Kaye George, Linda Kay Hardie, Mary Dutta, Michael Bracken, Sandra Murphy, and Steve Liskow.  Toe-tapping tales to keep your spine tingling!
  

• For CRIMEUCPOIA: WHAT THE BUTLER DIDN’T SEE, writers set out to prove that sometimes the butler is actually innocent!  Taking on the challenge are SMFS all-stars S. B Watson (“The Locked Igloo”), Gregory Meece (“Senior Call Up”), Michele Bazan Reed (“The Nun’s Habit”), Bonnar Spring (“Hoodwinked”), Kathleen Marple Kalb (“All That Kissy Stuff”) and John M. Floyd (“Not One Word”).
  

• The groundbreaking ON FIRE AND UNDER WATER: A CLIMATE CHANGE CRIME FICTION ANTHOLOGY proves that our genre can take on even the most serious of contemporary issues in engaging, entertainng ways.  Contributors include SMFS members C. W. Blackwell (“Poison is the Wind that Blows”), Richie Narvaez (“The Skies are Red”) and Meagan Lucas (“What You Lost”).
  

• Meanwhile, in MYOPIC DUPLICITY, edited by Jeff Circle, authors offer up tales of moral ambiguity and psychological tension, asking if the ends ever justify the means.  Highlights include SMFS members C. W. Blackwell (“The High Priest of Low Men”) and M. E. Proctor (“For Rosalie, With Love”).
  

•  SMFS’s own Abe Margel is among the contributors to CURSES: CHRONICLES OF DARKNESS with his powerful yarn “Uneasy Spirit.”
  

• Turning to periodicals, ROCK AND A HARD PLACE continues to offer the very best in hard-hitting crime in issue 15, including SMFS members Brandon Barrows (“Lucky Duck”) and M. E. Proctor (“Black Ice”).
  

• THRILL RIDE charges hard into its eleventh issue, featuring pulse-pounding action in tales like Robert J. Binney’s “Tramps Like Us.”
  

• The long-awaited sixteenth issue of BLACK CAT MYSTERY MAGAZINE more than rewards readers’ patience with powerhouse storytelling from SMFS members Mark Thielman *Masterpiece”), Jackie Ross Flaum (“The Sawmill Salvation”), Elizabeth Zelvin (“A Sortie From the Harem”), Michele Bazan Reed (“The Hound Heads to Hollywood”) and Robert Lopresti (“The Night Beckham Burned Down”).
  

• Billing itself, with reason, as the cutting edge of modern short fiction, PULPHOUSE issue 40 features SMFS members Annie Reed (“Hellfire”) and David H. Hendrickson (“Stepping Into the Light”).  Not to be missed!
  

• If anyone deserves to be featured alongside Raymond Chandler in the latest issue of THE STRAND MAGAZINE, it’s sure SMFS legend John M. Floyd, whose “Reptiles” spins the story of a harmless prank gone very wrong.  You won’t soon forget this one!
  

• Over in WOMAN’S WORLD, D. K. Snyder serves up solve-it-yourself fun in “Fresh-Baked Fraud.”  Look for it on your local newstand!
• Like your mysteries on the go?  Don’t miss the MYSTERIES TO DIE FOR podcast!  The latest episode features a neophyte investigator who gets in over his head in Larry M. Keeton’s “First Reports are Rarely Right.”
• BLACK CAT WEEKLY continues to offer readers an incredible value, with hundreds of pages of new and classic genre fiction every week.  Among the new in recent weeks: Joseph S. Walker’s “What We Talk Like When We Talk Like a Pirate” and Robert Lopresti’s “Shanks and the High Bidder,” the latest in Lopresti’s long-running and much-loved Shanks series.
  

• STONE’S THROW offers up just one (free!) story a month, but it’s always a winner.  For September the story was S. B. Nolen’s “Fire Season,” with crime and natural disaster crossing paths.
• Over at NECESSARY FICTION, Terena Elizabeth Bell gives us “Mall of America, with crime rearing its head in the most unlikely of settings.
• Taking more of a horror tack at MYSTERY TRIBUNE is Debra Bliss Saenger in “Knocking on a Heathen Door.”  Perfect for the start of spooky season!
• Crossing the pond, THE PEOPLE’S FRIEND proudly presents a 1930s historical in Veronica Leigh’s “Down in the Valley.”
• As always, we wrap up by congratulating SMFS members who saw books published in recent weeks.  First up is Vinnie Hansen’s CRIME WRITER, about, well, a crime writer on a police ride-along who sees something she definitely should not have seen.
  

• In M. E. Proctor’s latest entry in the Declan Shaw series, CATCH ME ON A BLUE DAY, Shaw investigates the apparent suicide of a reporter who had asked for his help–though the police just want the whole thing to go away.
  

• And finally, not satisfied with writing his own award-winning stories and editing multiple anthologies, SMFS Golden Derringer winner Josh Pachter has also translated dozens of stories from other languages for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.  More than twenty of the best are collected in DUTCH TREATS: CRIME FICTION BY DUTCH AND FLEMISH AUTHORS.  Gotta love that cover!
  

And there’s another guide to help you find great fireside reading as a fall chill fills the air.  Stay tuned for more, because nothing slows down the Short Mystery Fiction Society in our relentless pursuit of literary excellence!