Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - November 2014

In this issue

No matter who you are or where you are—and in our November issue, you’ll be immersed in a variety of captivating locales—tough decisions can be haunting, and often lead to misdeeds. In a new Hennessey and Yellich tale by Peter Turnbull (“The Mushroom Picker”), we find a body posed in the lotus position in a York forest. . . . Who was this man, where is his family, and how did his past bring him here? Familial ties also tug as we venture to the Prohibition-Era, Little Balkans region of Kansas, where a young protagonist is plunged into the murky underbelly of bootlegging (“Deep Shaft” by Suzanne Arruda).
In another story on the theme of family, a Marine Corps veteran and L.A. refugee seeks peace in Death Valley, where his Native American grandfather’s spirit resides, but when the land is threatened, he must decide where his loyalties lie (“Howling at the Moon” by Paul D. Marks). The characters in Art Tayor’s coolly distressing “The Odds Are Against Us” and in Michael Weinreb’s harrowing short-short “The Ocean” struggle with similar questions of loyalty, the former in an oft-frequented bar and the latter at an urban waterfront.
Add in a tale from the fashion world involving a clever plan to trap a killer (“The Golden Peacock” by Joan Richter) and a locked-room mystery (“The Lure of the Green Door”) solved by the Ellery Queen-esque detective Norizuki Rintarō, in Passport to Crime, and this issue covers all the bases. Don’t miss it!