Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - May/June 2019

In this issue

In EQMM’s May/June 2019 issue, sunny shores contain dark secrets, as in Edgar Award nominated Art Taylor’s “Better Days” and the edge-of-your-seat ride “Hurricane Jonah” by T.J. MacGregor. Speaking of sunshine, join Pat Black’s policemen on a bittersweet day, “The First Day of the School Holidays”—and a private investigator in Mark Stevens’s “A Bitter Thing,” a story taking place in the world of hit rock musicians.

Classical-mystery fans will love the impossible-crime tale “Murder With a Flick of the Wrist” by William Burton McCormick and Carlos Orsi’s locked-room puzzle “Hatred in the House of Prayer.” Ellery Queen fans will delight in the return of The Puzzle Club in Josh Pachter’s pastiche “A Study in Scarlett!”

Several authors take a look at childhood: Anna Scotti in “From Deep Within the Earth, She Smiled” and Marilyn Todd in “Boys Will Be Boys” explore the temperaments of young men, while Sheila Kohler’s “The Darling” looks back on trauma and a family secret. Janice Law’s “My Companion” follows a lonely kid looking for friendship. Other stories explore different family dynamics (see “The Shrew” by Bill Pronzini and Dave Zeltserman’s “Brother’s Keeper” [Black Mask]).

Battles of the past wage on for a soldier in “A Question of Rabbits” by J.L. Orchard (Department of First Stories), a doomed activist in Adrian J. McKinty’s “From Hell,” and characters in the twisty tales “The Duelist,” a historical by David Dean, and “The Workout,” a noirish thriller by Brendan DuBois.

Also not to miss are Chad Baker’s wry “The Smoking Bandit of Lakeside Terrace,” where a miffed tenant in an assisted-living facility sleuths; a haunting bedtime story by Jyotirmoyee Devi Sen translated from the Bengali (“The Queen and the Concubine”); the satirical “The Girl on the Bandwagon” by Martin Edwards (a sly take on psychological suspense); a poem by James Sallis (“Dear Interrogator”), and the results of our 2018 Readers Award contest!