Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - June 2016

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The sixth month of EQMM’s year-long 75th-anniversary celebration is ushered in by an issue honoring a longtime contemporary on the mystery scene: the Mystery Writers of America (MWA). As Janet Hutchings explains in her From the Editor’s Desk feature “The MWA and Its Awards,” EQMM’s founders, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (both recipients of several MWA awards), were early supporters of the MWA, and the magazine and the writers’ organization would grow in tandem to become mainstays of the genre. In homage to the MWA, this issue, with the exception of the Department of First Stories, is comprised entirely of stories by authors who have received one or more of the MWA’s awards.

Opening the issue is “Puncher’s Chance,” a Black Mask tale set in the world of boxing by Doug Allyn, who has won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award and two Edgar Allan Poe awards for best short story from the MWA. From our archives comes an espionage tale by a past master of the short-story form, MWA Edgar winner and Grand Master Edward D. Hoch (“One Bag of Coconuts”). Creative endeavors turn sour in “Dial M for Marsha” by best-first-novel Edgar Allan Poe Award winner John Morgan Wilson and in “Viewfinder” by Robert L. Fish Memorial Award winner David Ingram. Familiar series characters are on the case in best-short-story Edgar award winner Peter Turnbull’s poignant police procedural “Loss” as well as in Fish award winner William Dylan Powell’s P.I. tale “The Night Watchman’s Wife.” You won’t know whom to trust in a complex and emotional tale by best-paperback-original Edgar winner T.J. MacGregor (“The Unit”) or in the twisty psychological thriller “The Mean Distance” by best-short- story Edgar winner Jean B. Cooper, who was also a finalist in the MWA’s Fiftieth Anniversary Short Story contest. The Department of First Stories introduces Mysti Berry, with a puzzling whodunit set against the colorful pop-culture backdrop of Comic-Con (“Johnny Depp Kick Line of Doom”).