KILL for the MEMORIES by Leigh Lundin Checklist for Movie Rental Belgian subtitled with protagonist who is aging rapidly is becoming senile kills people If you plan to rent a suspense thriller one weekend, this checklist might appear something you’d avoid, but that would be a mistake. Variously known as The Alzheimer Case, The Memory […]

AND THE WINNER IS . . . by John M. Floyd Like most (if not all) of you, I’ve been reading short stories for many years, and like most (if not all) of you, I especially enjoy mysteries. Also, as a writer of that kind of fiction, I like shopping for markets that might be […]

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT by Steve Steinbock This past week I reread Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Purloined Letter.” I’ve heard it argued that all the elements of the modern mystery can be found in the three stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin: locked room murder (“Murders in the Rue Morgue”), armchair detection (“Mystery of Marie […]

Deborah Elliott-Upton is taking a well-deserved sabbatical for the remainder of this month. Today, in her stead, we welcome back Louis Willis with some fascinating observations on the history of the mystery crime short story market. —JLW IN THE OLD DAYS by Louis Willis Last year, I bought Pulp Fictioneers: Adventures in The Storytelling Business, […]

STEALING FROM THE BRITS by Rob Lopresti I have a story in the latest (July/August) issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Well, it’s more of an anecdote. “Shanks on Misdirection” is very short, especially compared to my last appearance there, which was a novelette. But what I want to discuss is that I stole the […]

PARADISE SUCKS by Melodie Johnson Howe This is going to be a very short column. I just had an emergency root canal. (An end to a perfect week.) The left side of my face feels like the Elephant Man’s looked. My dentist had the hands the size of Moose Malloy’s and I’m sure he wearing […]

CRIMINAL BRIEF ENCOUNTER by James Lincoln Warren Ever since I first conceived of Criminal Brief, it has been my fervent desire to encourage as much reader participation as possible, even beyond trying to stimulate responses to our posts. CB was first and foremost intended as an advocacy site for short crime fiction, a voice for […]