Magazine Review: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine January/February 2024 edited by Janet Hutchings
Despite the cover date, this issue of the venerable mystery story magazine hit newsstands in December 2023, so is the Christmas issue as well as the Sherlock Holmes tribute. I bought this issue and promptly had it buried under a to read pile, but better late than never. Let’s look inside!
“The Quebecois Quotient” by C.H. Hung starts off the issue with a reporter being asked to look into a death that might have something to do with Canadian Christmas tree vendors. Her patron is too impatient for the police to get around to deciding it was murder, and has enough money to convince the paper to take a closer look.
“The Jury Box” by Steve Steinbock is the book review column, which looks at a couple of Icelandic crime novels, as well a bit of Sherlockania.
“Sacrifice in White” by Qinwen Sun is set in Shanghai. A dismembered body is found in a snow-filled park, seemingly arranged to send a message. The victim was definitely alive after the snow started, but there’s no footprints or other signs of the snow being disturbed around the body. The police are baffled by this seemingly impossible crime, which might have ties to a very similar cold case. This is one of those stories where the solution is seemingly found several pages before the end…
“Stranger than Fiction: Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of the Spurned Lover” by Dean Jobb looks at a real-life murder that spurred one of ACD’s rare forays into true crime writing. The case is most notable for the seemingly inexplicable behavior of the culprit.
“Streets of Joy” by Charley Marsh finds a private eye saddled with an emergency babysitting job and also needing to investigate the disappearance of a homeless man, time being of the essence due to the freezing weather. With little choice, the detective must bring his small charge with him into the cold streets. There is darkness and crime, but perhaps also you can find family and joy. This one made me cry a bit.
“The Carfax Lunatic Society” by David Dean has an alienist contacted by a certain Transylvanian nobleman to investigate the death of a former patient of his. It’s a different perspective on a certain famous novel.
“Into the Silent Land” by Anna Scotti is about a woman in Witness Protection who keeps finding herself getting mixed up with new crimes. This time, her cover is as a property manager, and she really intends to stay out of trouble, but there’s a corpse on the sidewalk right in front of one of the bungalows. This one has a witness that might not be telling the whole truth for shocking reasons.
“Where the Heart Is” by Jacqueline Freimor is more Poe than Doyle, as a man whose wife has disappeared tries to figure out what happened. Much is implied, but little explained.
“Far from the Tree” by Pete Lieunoir is a “first story” by a British TV cameraman, but the protagonist is more of a still photographer. He’s obsessed with a murderer brought to justice decades before by his police detective father, and wants to photograph the man. This might not be the best idea.
“Rendering” by Sophia Lynch is another “first story.” The creative writing student spins a yarn about a life model who prefers individual posing for one artist to classroom work. As the tension in the tiny studio rises, it’s obvious something bad will happen, but what?
“How Mary’s Garden Grew” by Elizabeth Elwood features a narrator who’s a big fan of Agatha Christie novels, and tends to see parallels to them too often for her husband’s liking. Their next door neighbor may be suffering elder abuse, and there’s a suspicious change in the garden when the narrator returns from vacation.
“Blog Bytes” by Kristopher Zgorski gives a brief look at two websites for aspiring writers.
“A Tear in His Hand” by James D.F. Hannah is the “Black Mask” (noir pulp) story for this issue. A man is cooking breakfast when his long-lost brother arrives. There’s a reason why he ditched that brother and moved to another state. Violence ensues.
“The Crooked Man” by Terence Faherty is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, presented as one of Dr. Watson’s manuscripts that never made it out of draft stage. An older married couple are heard arguing, there’s a scream and crash, then silence. The room is locked from the inside, and when the servant manages to break in, the couple has vanished, seemingly impossibly. It’s hinted that Watson’s own marriage is going through a rough patch.
“Death in the Moonlight” by William Burton McCormick is one of his series about Quintus, a thief from Ancient Rome. In this story, he gets mixed up with pirates in Egypt, but in the darkness of the night, pirates might not be the most lethal thing on the Nile.
“Riders Up” by John F. Dobbyn has some circus folk go to the horse races during the Great Depression. They realize one of the races is fixed, but the man who’s responsible is too dangerous to cross. How can they ensure justice is done?
“Little Jim” by Terena Elizabeth Bell is a monologue by the title character who is perhaps a bit slow of mind. He means well, but his innocent actions expose a crime that he might not have wanted to.
“Enchantress” by Steve Hockensmith is part of his “Holmes on the Range” series, about cowboy brothers Old Red and Big Red, who’ve turned detective. They’re called in to investigate the theft of rare carnations from a florist who operates out of a graveyard. But that might not be the worst crime happening here. There’s some flower language that might need explaining for folks not familiar with the history in question.
“The Problem of the Vanishing Sopranos” by Erica Obey is part of her series about Mary Watson, a librarian who’s built an artificial intelligence named “Doyle” that she’s trying to teach to write mystery stories. It’s not going so well, but they are solving mysteries in real life. This time, it’s an opera singer who’s gone missing, which may be tied to an earlier disappearance. We get bits and pieces of Doyle’s writing, and I felt the story was muddled and poorly constructed. Nice bit of vocabulary enrichment though.
“What Is Your…?” by Mat Coward has an actor filling out one of those celebrity confession questionnaires. As he proceeds, it becomes clear that something terrible has happened.
My favorite stories are the ones by Sun and Hockensmith, least favorite the Obey and Freimore ones, but overall it’s a good selection of interesting mystery tales. You can probably still find this back issue with a little effort.
