CRIMINAL ELEMENT by Leigh Lundin When Terrie Moran introduced readers to Criminal Element some weeks back, I harbored the suspicion secret dark depths lay beneath the surface of this felonious theme park. Thus I asked our good friend Terrie to give CB readers a crime-ridden tour, treading the dark alleyways, sidestepping the blood and slime, […]

I’m giving up my Saturday slot today so we can include a guest column by my friend Fran Rizer, who joins Leigh and me in the current issue of the online magazine Pages of Stories. As you might already know, Fran is the South Carolina author of the delightful Callie Parrish mysteries, and (thank goodness) […]

Although he is the author of several books—including the young adult romance Just in Time for Love and the hardboiled private eye novel All White Girls—Michael Bracken is better known as the author of almost 900 short stories in various genres. He began writing professionally while still a teenager and has been a full-time freelance […]

We have a special treat today. I have written before about James Powell whom I think is one of the best current writers of mystery short stories. A few weeks ago I reviewed his latest story, and that led to an e-chat, and that resulted to this lovely piece. By the way, the story he […]

Yesterday David Dean, mystery writer and police chief, gave us a short course on hand guns; specifically the revolver. Today we go semi-automatic . . . WRITE TO BEAR ARMS-Part II by David Dean Colt M1911A1 .45 semi-automatic pistol with magazine, showing .45 ACP and 9mm parabellum cartidges for comparison Now to those semi-automatics, also […]

Today and tomorrow, our regularly scheduled columns are being pre-empted by special programming. Over to you in the studio, Rob! —JLW David Dean is an excellent writer of mystery stories, but don’t take my word for it. Read “Tomorrow’s Dead” in the current (July) Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. David also happens to be a police […]

I had planned to return to The Scribbler this week, but when I received this submission from Stephen Ross, I knew I’d have to wait until my turn rolled around again. I really have nothing to add to what others have written already about that wonderful final week in April, especially to what Stephen has […]