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Here, you will find highlights of each month's print issue – including excerpts from our award-winning short stories, our book-review column The Jury Box, and The Mystery Crossword.The place to be for a good mystery!
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Vote for Your Favorite Stories of 2008!
Your paper ballot - page 112 in the December 2008 print edition of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine - must be postmarked no later than December 17, 2008, to be counted in our annual Readers Award competition. Photocopies and ballots postmarked after that date will not be counted. View our online index to refresh your memory.
Let our annual holiday issue provide the perfect break from shopping and guests this season, with yuletide murder, burglary, and intrigue. Edward D. Hoch's Simon Ark returns to EQMM for a final adventure in "The Christmas Egg," investigating the theft of a valuable bejeweled egg from under lock and key at a Pennsylvania egg company. Doug Allyn takes us on the rough investigation of a brutal car accident with Valhalla, Michigan's police department at holiday time; Andrew Klavan sends a Christmas revelation to a pious hit man in New York City; Dennis Richard Murphy demonstrates how even Christmas in Paradise isn't free of revenge and paranoia; Passport to Crime author Susanne Mischke reveals what happens when a friendly holiday lights competition turns un-neighborly; and Simon Brett and Caroline Benton bring us two tales in which the holidays tip the scales of married life from "tedious" to "murderous."
Filling out the issue are an academic cozy set in Siena, Italy, from Robert Barnard; a humorous hardboiled short from Tim Maleeny; the tale of a creepy, late-night highway encounter from Eileen Anderson, in our Department of First Stories; and the latest installment of our Black Mask series, the story of a hired killer who tries not to enjoy his job too much, by new writer Gary Cahill. You also won't want to miss Jon Breen's "Jury Box" column of gift ideas for your favorite mystery reader and Bill Crider's monthly roundup of Web sites in "Blog Bytes."
"All of us at EQMM are profoundly saddened by the loss of Ed Hoch, long-time author and friend."
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Agatha Award Nominee: A Rat's Tale
by Donna Andrews
I had a bad feeling when the doorbell rang. Of course, I never like hearing the doorbell. I'd known for a while that someone could file a complaint with social services or the health department at any time. As soon as they stepped through the door, the game would be up. The old man would be off to some home and I'd be out in the cold…
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The Killer Christian
by Andrew Klavan
Art by Mark Evan Walker
Hailed by Stephen King as "the most original American novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich," Andrew Klavan has written many notable thrillers, including Don't Say a Word, which was turned into a 2001 film starring Michael Douglas. His latest novel, Empire of Lies (Harcourt, July 2008), follows a man who risks his life to stop a terrorist plot. The author originally produced the following for limited distribution as a holiday gift for customers of New York's Mysterious Bookshop.
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Mouse
by Caroline Benton
Art by Laurie Harden
Here with an evocative Christmas tale is British author Caroline Benton, who was raised in Somerset, England, but moved to France some dozen years ago. There she converted a haunted watermill into a holiday home which she runs together with her partner, while simultaneously pursuing her writing career. Her novel The Path of the Dead was published in the United States by Carroll & Graf Publishers in 2006. We have two more of her stories in the pipeline.
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