Stories
“Hey, Miz Patterson. Good class! See you next week!” Briana Jones yelled out the car window, her shrill voice competing with LL Cool J blaring from the radio. Then, the driver, probably the Ronald she wrote about in her personal essays—the one responsible for the bruises on her smooth, mocha …
Stories
“Folded up in a sofa bed?” Ginny stared. She bent over, leaned in, and reached under a cushion. “Tidy ending, don’t you think,” Charlotte nodded her own answer. “Innovative. Never would’ve thought of it as a weapon, actually, a sofa bed. I mean a Murphy bed, maybe. I could see …
Stories
Joe set his pistol on the counter and poured a cup of coffee from the machine. He took a sip, then slid the magazine out of the 9mm. The mag held 17. He reloaded the gun and stuck it in the back of his jeans and took a sip. He …
Stories
Ned Bryson and the Missing Girl
I stopped at Harry’s Diner for coffee after a late-night surveillance mission in a very rich neighborhood. My client was a landlord who owned a top-ticket apartment complex—mostly townhouses. He wanted to know what was going on there. One of his townhouses was exceptionally busy after dark. I kept an …
Stories
I sat in the club and listened to the music as Duke Ellington led the ensemble through his latest composition, Black and Tan Fantasy. A heaviness welled up in the center of my chest as the sorrowful melody played out. The notes, so similar to those played at a funeral, …
Stories
There was still no particular evidence of a crime. Just because Timothy W. Venture, Regional Sales Manager, Stillwater Investments, Silicon Valley, was lying sprawled on the floor of his corner office. The men had outlined him in tape, the carpet having proved resistant to chalk. “Looks like he was hit …
Stories
Back in the day, I longed to become a policewoman, but girls from my social class did not do such things. Instead, it was off to Bryn Mawr for a degree in psychology and then straight down the aisle with Winfield Caldwell III and on to raising a family. But …
Stories
THE LAW & DAUGTER series When a young boy witnesses a robbery but remembers only one thing about the getaway vehicle, locating the thief seems almost impossible. Until amateur sleuth Fran Valentine narrows things down a bit . . . VANITY CASE Retired schoolteacher Frances Valentine found her daughter Lucy …
Stories
Ever since I read James Dickey's novel Deliverance, I wanted to take a canoe trip down our lazy bayou all the way down to the Mississippi. When I told Pat, my friend and Sheriff of Ellison Parish, he grinned, and told me that it was his dream too. "Let's do …
Columns
The Wayne Lonergan murder case of 1943–44 elicited a slew of newspaper reports at the time. Over the next seventy years it became the subject of numerous essays, book chapters, and entire books. And it stimulated the imaginations of several novelists. Born in 1918 in Toronto, Ontario, Wayne came to …
Columns
I LEARNED IT AT THE MOVIES: The Wrong Man (1956)
The Wrong Man (1956) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Henry Fonda as Christopher Emanuel (Manny) Balestrero Vera Miles as Rose Balestrero Anthony Quayle as attorney Frank O’Connor Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man is based on a true story. We hear this from the director himself, standing in a pool of …
Columns
More from the Expanding TV and Film Universe For a TV and film columnist, I can't go to the movies as often as I'd like. That's less important since television sets have come to resemble private silver screens and movies can be played at the touch of a button. …
Columns
Triple the Reading Pleasure Today’s a treat, a triple bill, if you will, with authors Laura Childs and Terrie Farley Moran talking about their latest mystery, Crepe Factor, book 14 in the Scrapbooking Mysteries series. Also meet author Amy Patricia Meade, who talks about her latest mystery, Short-Circuited in Charlotte, …
Columns
Prolific Female Crime Writers…Really??
Classic crime novels are gaining a new and younger audience. When you’ve run through the usual suspects like Christie, Allingham, Gardner, or Stout, to name a few, who do you turn to next or do you rereading them again? At the mystery bookshop I own, Chronicles of Crime, I take …
Columns
Spring The lousy, cloudy Philadelphia winter has broken and given way to the usual Philly Spring which is spring-like once in a while. We just made it through the NFL draft which took place in an outdor venue on the elegant steps leading to Philadelphia's Art Museum (how's that for a …
Interviews
An Interview with D.J. Adamson
J. Adamson is the author of the Lillian Dove Mystery series and Outré, a science fiction-suspense YA. She is the editor of Le Coeur de l’Artiste, a newsletter which reviews authors and their work. She also teaches writing and literature at Los Angeles colleges. And to keep busy when she …
Interviews
An Interview with Lida Sideris
Like her heroine, Corrie Locke, Lida Sideris worked as an entertainment attorney for a film studio. Unlike her heroine, she did not get blackmailed into investigating the suspicious death of a co-worker. Lida resides in the northern tip of Southern California with her family, their rescue shepherds, and a flock …
