VIPER'S NEST OF LIES
Mystery Scene|Fall #169, 2021
A slip of the tongue is a dangerous thing. Not only does it expose indiscretions, it also can lead to murder. The latter especially applies to me.
Daniella Bernett
VIPER'S NEST OF LIES

Like other authors, particularly women, I’m a very good listener. My smile encourages and emboldens my interlocutor to chunter on with innocent abandon. Although I’m not inherently patient (far from it, I must confess), when it comes to telling a story I can bide my time until that tempting little idea insinuates itself into the conversation. Then, I pounce with covetous glee. The poor layman would be shocked and scramble to understand this phenomenon, at last settling on the term “inspiration.” But it is even more simplistic. My Muse and I shamelessly justify this as necessary for the sake of art and, more importantly, my dear readers.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Fall #169, 2021 من Mystery Scene.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Fall #169, 2021 من Mystery Scene.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من MYSTERY SCENE مشاهدة الكل
6 New Writers to Watch
Mystery Scene

6 New Writers to Watch

Wiley Cash’s debut, A Land More Kind Than Home, about the bond between two brothers landed on the New York Times Best Sellers List and received the Crime Writers’ Association Debut of the Year.

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10 mins  |
Fall #169, 2021
CARLENE O'CONNOR
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CARLENE O'CONNOR

“Anyone can play Snow White. It takes real talent to play the Wicked Witch.”

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8 mins  |
Fall #169, 2021
HILARY DAVIDSON
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HILARY DAVIDSON

Call it The Case of Life Imitating Art.

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7 mins  |
Fall #169, 2021
S.A. COSBY
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S.A. COSBY

In Razorblade Tears, two aging men—one Black, one white, both with criminal pasts—join forces to seek revenge for the murders of their gay sons. The themes of fathers and sons and toxic masculinity will be familar to fans of Cosby’s 2020 breakout Blacktop Wasteland.

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10 mins  |
Fall #169, 2021
THE MANY FACES OF MORIARTY
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THE MANY FACES OF MORIARTY

By 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle was a worldwide literary sensation. But he was also a man dogged by an unlikely enemy, and that enemy’s name was Sherlock Holmes. Frankenstein-like, the fictional detective haunted his creator, tormenting him, and would not leave him alone. For it must be said that Conan Doyle was a man of high literary aspirations, with a yearning to write books of both “serious” literature and psychical research. But the demand for new Holmes stories prevented him from realising this ambition. Speaking of this period in his career, Conan Doyle observed in an interview for Tit-Bits in December 1900 that “My low work was obscuring my higher.”

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9 mins  |
Summer #168 2021
WILL DEAN
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WILL DEAN

From an isolated cabin in a boggy Swedish forest, Will Dean conjures a fascinating series and now an intense standalone full of claustrophobia and creepiness.

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8 mins  |
Summer #168 2021
STEPHEN MACK JONES
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STEPHEN MACK JONES

If the meaning of life is a puzzle awaiting assembly, then writers are purveyors of its pieces.

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9 mins  |
Summer #168 2021
Madness on Campus
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Madness on Campus

Helen Eustis’ The Horizontal Man

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5 mins  |
Summer #168 2021
TIME TRAVEL, CATS, AND AN OLD MANUSCRIPT
Mystery Scene

TIME TRAVEL, CATS, AND AN OLD MANUSCRIPT

Have you ever wished that you could go back in time and change something in your past or visit the future and find out what it has in store for you? Have you questioned what would happen if time travel was available to everyone? Could 9/11 have been prevented? Could the spread of COVID-19 have been eradicated before it ended so many lives?

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2 mins  |
Summer #168 2021
GRIPPING RESEARCH
Mystery Scene

GRIPPING RESEARCH

I said my first words in a bar—“orange sody.” I eventually outgrew my love of Whistle orange soda, but I have a lifelong interest in bars.

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2 mins  |
Summer #168 2021