"A Matter of Trust, by Barb Goffman, in Three Strikes -- You're Dead!, edited by Donna  Andrews, Barb Goffman, and Marcia Talley, Wildside Press, 2024. This is the fourth story by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer to get reviewed in this space. I suppose of all the sports that appear in this anthology bicycling is the one most likely to catch my attention, since I spend sometime every day pedaling. Ethan and Jessica are married.  He works at home, she doesn't.  But that's not the problem.  "Nothing says love like jelly... Donuts don't judge." That's the problem.  ..read more

 "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bled," by Joseph S. D'Agnese, in Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman, Level Short, 2024. I have a story in this book. This nice historical tale is the third appearance here by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer, Joseph S. D'Agnese. Greenwich Village has been a magnet for the artistic and the different for a long time.  This story is set in 1859 when such people flocked to Pfaff's a German-owned tavern.  When a theatre critic is murdered there one night it draws unwanted attention to the place. Thin ..read more

 "Restoration Software," by Robert J. Binney, in The Killing Rain, edited by Jim Thomsen, Down and Out Books, 2024. Let's talk humor.  Some stories are witty.  Some are quirky.  Some are downright farcical.  We are solidly in farce territory here. This is the story of a Seattle private eye, not exactly a  native to the city, but one who has been kicking (ahem) around the northwest for a long time.  "He might be an eight-foot-tall mythological savage covered in mottled, tangled fur, but he was no dummy." Yup. Sasquatch, P.I. You may wonder how ..read more

 "Mine Eyes Dazzle," by M.K. Waller, in Dark of the Day, edited by Kaye George, Down and Out Books, 2024. As you probably know by now, I read a lot of short stories.  I seldom take the time to reread one of them, but I did this one.  You might wind up doing the same. Stephen is a blind lawyer, in his late forties.  Jean is his paralegal, almost a decade younger.  When they get married they declare the relationship a miracle, and it seems to be. Until another miracle occurs; this time of the medical variety.  An experimental surgery provides Stephen with sight fo ..read more

 "The Mysterious Woman in the Lifeguard Chair," by Bruce W. Most, in Mystery Magazine, May 2024. This is the second story by Most to get reviewed in this column and both have featured Weegee the Famous.  In real life Weegee was a freelance photographer, famous for his portraits of New York City at night, especially of crime scenes. It's a hot summer night during World War II and Weegee is at Coney Island, using new infrared film to take pictures of lovers and other people hoping to find some relief from the heat on the beach.  He snaps a shot of a young woman alone in a lifegu ..read more

 "The Lover of Eastlake," by Sam Wiebe, in The Killing Rain, edited by Jim Thomsen, Down and Out Books, 2024. This is the fourth time in thirteen years that I have reviewed stories by the same author two weeks in a row. Very different story, I assure you. Rachel Miles is in Seattle Children's Hospital tonight.  The neonatal wing.  She just had her baby.  Not mine, of course, how could it be, she hasn't met me yet.  But that's okay. A baby is acceptable to me.  She and I have all the time in the world to start a family of our own. Hoo boy.  We know a lot abo ..read more

  "The Barguzin Sable," by Sam Wiebe, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March/April, 2024. Let's talk Macguffins. Some people use the word as a synonym for plot device.  Red herring? That's a Macguffin. Dying words clue? Another Macguffin. Wrong. Alfred Hitchcock, who brought the term into storytelling use, had one specific meaning in mind. A Macguffin is the Thing Everybody Wants: the quest object.  Sauron's Ring.  The ruby slippers.  The Maltese Freaking Falcon. It can be valuable for many different reasons.  There's money or power, obviously, but it could als ..read more

 "The Four-Nine Profile," by Richard Helms, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2024.  This is the eleventh appearance in this blog by Richard Helms. Write what you know; so the experts tell us.  Helms is following that advice here. He used to be a forensic psychologist, like his protagonist. Helms makes an interesting choice for opening the story: Nathan Lake is interviewing a man who has pled guilty to sexual assault but denies he has done it. This turns out to be unrelated to the main plot, but we learn a lot about Lake's character, job and methods.  And th ..read more

 "I Remember it Well," by Wayne J. Gardiner, in Black Cat Weekly, #134, 2024.  This is the third story by Gardiner to get reviewed here. It may be related to the aging of us baby-boomers but I have detected an increase over the last decade of stories about people with memory problems.   Seems like a theme better fit for shorts than novels, I think. Charlie Hackett is an aging ex-cop and his memory has been failing for a while - in fact that's why he became an ex-cop.  At a funeral for a fellow veteran he spots a woman a decade younger and he is certain he knows her from s ..read more

  "What is Your..." by Mat Coward, in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January/February 2024. This is the eighth story by Coward to appear in this blog. Sometimes a writer faces the challenge of finding something new in a formula.  But sometimes there is no formula and the writer is producing something sui generis, belonging to no category. Not for the first time, Coward has done the latter. Our protagonist is an actor, not as young or successful as he would like to be, but with enough fame that he is occasional asked to fill out the type of questionnaires  that show up in popul ..read more