Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - December 2013

In this issue

Our December issue, the last of 2013, is here, and it provides an opportunity for readers to look back at the year’s offerings and vote for the best story of the year. Be sure to cast your ballot!

Leading off the issue is Liza Cody’s “I Am Not Fluffy,” about a working girl seeking payback for herself and a way to defend her friends. Another strong woman features in D.A. McGuire’s atmospheric “The Cove,” in which the indignant protagonist is stuck in the middle of a possible murder after she captures the wrong peoples’ faces in a photograph. . . .

Speaking of faces, you can guess whose ghoulishly appears in David Dean’s “Jack and the Devil,” which features recurring characters Chief Julian Hall and Father Gregory. And another popular series character, Detective Cyrus Auburn, is on the scene again in John H. Dirckx’s “Starts With M, Rhymes With Girder,” where nefarious deeds haunt a construction site.

The surprises and disguises continue as a reckless man preys on his ex in Richard Macker’s tale “On a Saturday Evening,” and in Jonathan Santlofer’s chilling “Party Girls,” the author’s take on an historic murder case—that of the Black Dahlia.

Other nods to history and the classics are found in Denise Middlebrooks’s humorous first story “Othello Revised,” and in Dale C. Andrews’ locked-room puzzler “Literally Dead,” featuring Ellery Queen himself. To top it all off, there’s a classic reprint by Edward D. Hoch—a murder mystery set in the future—that shows the MWA Grand Master’s science-fictional side (“The Wolfram Hunters”).

The year’s index concludes the issue. Don’t forget to vote!