Mystery Weekly Magazine December 2018

At the cutting edge of crime fiction, Mystery Weekly Magazine presents original short stories by the world's best-known and emerging mystery writers. The stories we feature in our monthly issues span every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries. Evocative writing and a compelling story are the only certainty. Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and entertained--whether you enjoy the style of the Golden Age of mystery (e.g., Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle), the glorious pulp digests of the early twentieth century (e.g., Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), or contemporary masters of mystery. Tom Mead's "Invisible Death" is a gothic mystery in the golden-age tradition, inspired by the work of John Dickson Carr. It features a seemingly impossible locked-room murder in a snowbound country house. In "Mrs. Bott's Finest Christmas" by Michael Thomas Smith, a bar patron recounts a chance meeting with a notorious criminal who performed an act of kindness that didn't go as he expected. "Outrace The Snowfall" by Dave Creek provides a hated billionaire, a snowed-in mountaintop mansion, and a fresh supply of poison-what could go wrong? In "The Brew" by Connie Johnson Hambley, a rock star visits his home town, while his best friend teeters on the edges of sobriety and murder. In "Nice Grammar, That Guy" by Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Susan and Allen Horton seem the perfect couple, which makes Susan's bludgeoning death at the hands of a homeless man outside a Providence restaurant after a 10th anniversary dinner all the more shocking. "Rolls Upon Prank" by Jeff Somers-even in sleepy backyards, guarded by the timid and the well-fed, murders can be committed ... and upset the balance of nature. Test your sleuthing skills with "New Year's Thieve"-a You-Solve-It By Laird Long.