Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - November 2013

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As with many real-life crimes, tension in mystery stories often comes from ideas of territory. This month’s lead story by Charlaine Harris, creator of the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mysteries, contains in its title, “Small Kingdoms,” one such idea of what entitles someone to a place: reigning over and having complete control of it. Territoriality also lies behind events in Stephen T. Vessels’ stunning Department of First Stories debut “Doloroso,” set in the U.S.–Mexico border region amidst the violence of the drug cartels.

Home is the place most often defended or fought over, in life and in crime fiction. And in “Sob Sisters” by Kris Nelscott, a home is invaded and violated, leaving Val Wilson and her friend (or is he?) Detective Hank Kaplan to find the secrets contained in the dwelling’s hidden rooms. In Jim Allyn’s story “Princess Anne,” a storybook family is forced to reconsider the charming elements of their property—an idyllic acreage that hides a sinister secret. Violent trespass on a property also occurs in “A Study in Mint” by Lou Manfredo, in which series character Gus Oliver senses something fishy about the supposed suicide of a farmer in his own yard. (The story is a prequel to the author’s four earlier EQMM stories set in the Long Island town of Central Islin).

Adding to the tension this issue are several dramatic settings: Storms rage in Robert L. Fish Award winner David Ingram’s “A Covering Storm,” set during the historic Galveston Hurricane of 1900, and in Neil Schofield’s “Interview,” in which a widow considers carrying on the family business after picking up a suspicious-looking youth in the rain—but just what is that business? And if you like to travel from your armchair to foreign places, you won’t want to miss the debut in translation of Brazil’s Raphael Montes, a rising star whose short-short for our Passport department is entitled “Statement No. 060.719-67,” or Hilary Davidson’s “Darkness in the City of Light,” which takes her impressionable protagonist on a jaunt to Paris full of unexpected and chilling turns.

Rounding out the issue is Jon L. Breen’s not-to-be-missed yearly review of reprinted classics in “The Jury Box.”