IN THE MOOD Part the Second by James Lincoln Warren Two weeks ago, I wrote about grammatical moods and its three flavors, indicative, subjunctive, and imperative. The indicative and imperative moods are semantically pretty straightforward, but the subjunctive is fraught with subtlety and peril. The Gentle Reader may recall that the subjunctive mood is used […]

The DINNER GAME, part 2 by Leigh Lundin Last week, I described a dinner in which we invite our favorite personalities, mostly authors, mostly mystery writers. This week, I propose a dinner in which we invite our favorite fictional characters. The exercise has a point: How real are the characters? And how engaging? What can […]

A GUY IN A WOMAN’S WORLD by John M. Floyd All of us know about the heavyweights in the land of short crime fiction: AHMM, EQMM, The Strand, etc. Those publications have been around a long time, and for good reason. They have great stories and great editors, and just about every mystery writer I […]

THE MOLE IN THE SNOW by Steve Steinbock I was chased by a mole yesterday. Not the kind of mole you read about in spy stories, but a real rodent-type mole. He was actually a cute little guy, so even if you’re squeamish, stick with me now. I went out to get the mail. The […]

A GENEROUS STATE OF MIND by Deborah Elliott-Upton I’ve always thought of myself as generous. The thing is, you won’t be referred to as a philanthropist on a starving writer’s budget. Okay, so I’m definitely not starving and I don’t depending on my writer’s fees to fill the pantry. I am fortunate to have a […]

THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS by Rob Lopresti I am not judging any contests this year so I can share my opinions with you sans abash. These are my favorite mystery short stories of 2009. I don’t claim they are the best, because I only read two magazines and one book. There […]

When “short story studies” first became a subject in university English Lit departments in the 1960s, there was no author more scrutinized than Nathaniel Hawthorne, and no story more studied and critiqued than the one commencing below. It isn’t exactly a mystery story, although it contains a mystery, and it isn’t exactly a crime story, […]