Mystery Magazine : September 2022

At the cutting edge of crime fiction, Mystery 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.

★ In this issue â˜…

✓ In our cover story, "Golden Griffins" by Jenny Blackford, a teenage girl in Classical Athens (5th century BC) solves a crime, and saves a life.

✓ "For A Better City" by Peter W. J. Hayes: Combat medic Charlie Krill is in rehab, for just about everything. But he's sober now, and not about to let anyone take advantage of him.

✓ "The Devil In Sister Jones" by Beth Andrews is a satirical story of a possession and an exorcism, or is that really what happens?

✓ "If At First You Don't Succeed" by Michael Mallory: No one could understand why anyone would want to kill Bruce Finnerman with an explosive package. Then when it was discovered that the hit was a bizarre accident, investigation leads to the confirmation that truth is stranger than murder.

✓ "Two Sharks Walk Into A Bar" by David Krugler: Chicago, July 1977: Two pool sharks, Meredith and Darren, think they'll score easy money when they walk into a bar and challenge two young men to doubles. But nothing is as it appears in this hustle.

✓ In "The Trouble With Spiders" by K.L. Abrahamson, a woman moves into an apartment building and people start to die.

✓ In "A Crack In The Sidewalk" by Michael Biehl, a neighbor's slip-and-fall lawsuit disrupts a ten year-old boy's idyllic summer vacations of baseball and fun with his best friend. When the neighbor is killed by electrocution, the boy's father comes under suspicion of murder.

✓ ou-Solve-It By Laird Long, is a cozy with more than one ruined pie with a mystery that you can help solve.

Custom cover art by Robin Grenville Evans