Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - March/April 2023

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Spring is coming, but the March/April 2023 issue of EQMM offers some chills as well as thrills. National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Phlebotomist” and Marjolein van der Gaag’s “Beneath the Surface” tap into archetypal fears; David Dean revisits a classic horror tale from the point of view of “Mrs. Hyde,” and in “The Sleeper of Coldwreath” by Tom Mead, a sceptical academic teams up with his housekeeper to investigate claims of a haunting.

Physical chill envelopes the scene in “Snowbound,” a noir thriller by Brendan DuBois, and in the action-packed “Midnight Run” by L.S. Kunz (Department of First Stories). But for those longing for spring’s warmth, there’s “Mushrooming With Murray” by Karen Abrahamson, “The Balance of Some Things” by Sacha Bissonette, in which a vacation cabin is opened for the season, and “Drinking in the Afternoon” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, in which a health-care worker escapes the COVID-19 pandemic but encounters intrigue in the hot Southwest.

Family ties bring things to breaking points in “Shame the Devil” by Joseph Goodrich, “The Secret Sister” by Doug Allyn, “Game Four” by Travis Kennedy (Black Mask department), and “The Eye” by Savio Pham (Department of First Stories). Several other stories stand out for the experimental manner in which they're told: “Carver [and] (Company)” by Mike McHone, in which voices in a P.I.’s head become characters in the story; “What You Know, What I Know” by Michael Kardos, in which disconnected observers stumble on bits of information that could bring down a burglary ring; “Meth” by Terena Bell, whose narrator reflects on a crime he doesn’t want to commit, and “Bad Boy” by Michael Wiley, a dark tale told in verse.