Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - June 2014

In this issue

Our June issue goes on sale as awards season is heating up, heralding in the presentations of the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, the Malice Domestic Convention\'s Agatha Awards, and the EQMM Readers Awards. This issue contains stories by two of this year’s Readers Award winners: Dave Zeltserman, with a new case featuring Julius Katz and Archie (“Julius Accused”), and British author Marilyn Todd, who brings us a story in the Claudia Seferius series (“Bad Taste”).

We have two other tales from British authors, one with the return of a series character, and one introducing a new one: In Amy Myers’ “Parson Pennywick and the Murdered Owler,” Parson Pennywick tackles (and gets tackled by) foes very close to home, and in Liza Cody’s haunting story “A Hand”—the first for us starring Shareen Manasseh—the detective negotiates a slippery case involving unearthly suspects, occult clues, and seemingly supernatural experiences.

In Bill Pronzini’s “Hooch,” set on the Prohibition-era Californian coast, a bootlegger’s assistant (and wannabe mystery writer) doesn’t quite know how much his casual chatter will change his life, and the same goes for an ostensibly innocuous, albeit rash, act by a young Brooklynite searching for direction in Dara Carr’s story “When I’m Famous” from the Department of First Stories.

In a lyrical Passport story, “Checkmate in Chimbote” by Bob Van Laerhoven, we track a love-struck sound technician through the last, pivotal steps in a South American crime. The law catches up with the protagonist of Robert Lopresti’s story “The Accessory,” but on which side will the long arm land? Finally, an aspiring novelist in Roger Jones’s “Social Media” has to make an important decision about how much he can—or will—do to help someone in need. Don’t miss any of it: There could be a 2014 Readers Award winner here!