MWA Historian Barry T. Zeman returns with another installment elucidating Queen’s Quorum, a list of the most important anthologies and collections of mystery short stories. BANDERSNATCHES will return next week after Steve Steinbock recovers from his intemperate New Year’s Eve celebration. I have it on good authority that he actually had two glasses of champagne […]

Here’s the most famous Christmas short story of all time. It would be a crime not to reproduce it. –JLW THE GIFT OF THE MAGI by O. Henry One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the […]

Next Saturday, we welcome our newest column to Criminal Brief, “Mississippi Style” by the prolific and highly respected mystery short story author John M. Floyd. John and I had the honor to have both contributed to the May and June 1999 issues of AHMM, where our stories appeared back to back in each issue — […]

Melodie Johnson Howe is in Vermont, dashing through the snow in her brand new Uggs. Melodie kindly asked award winning journalist Kathleen Sharp to fill in, and we’re pleased as punch to have her. Her fascinating essay reminds me of two things: first, that all good writing is creative writing, and second (with apologies to […]

I’m taking the week off from The Scribbler this week to present this short edifying essay, a Criminal Brief exclusive, by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine‘s editor, Linda Landrigan — especially since it supports the point I was trying to make last week. Enjoy! –JLW THE MYTH OF THE ORIGINAL IDEA by Linda Landrigan Good ideas […]

Michael Haskins is the author of Chasin’ the Wind, the first in a series of projected novels published by Five Star, due in the spring of 2008. Although only recently published as an author of fiction, he has extensive experience as a crime writer through a former and long-lived career as a journalist. Michael has […]

Kevin Wignall, our very first contributor from the Other Side of the Pond, is the author of three highly acclaimed novels and a half dozen exceptional short stories for Ellery Queen and a handful of anthologies. You can read his first story for EQMM, “The Window”, here. You can read a review of his story, […]