Crimeucopia - The I's Have It

Investigators and investigations are the mainstay of most Crime fiction sub-genres. Everything from the Old Golden Age of country houses and the amateur sleuth, through to the high tech ultra-modern 21st Century – a place where the Cyber Investigators sometimes appear to be baffled by old-fashioned motivations of power and greed, and human foibles such as love and revenge.
So is there any real difference between the Private and the Public Investigators? Not much, if writers are to be believed, and the two can often be found straddling both sides of the ‘what’s legal procedure?’ fence.
Apart from John M. Floyd – who takes us back to the ‘Golden Age’ of the Private Eye in his Triangles – the remaining writers are all new voices to Crimeucopia.
This time round Mike Job opens with his Just Deserts – a nice main course rather than just an amuse-bouche – closely followed by Jill Hand and A Goddess, Enraged which moves us into the edges of Urban Fantasy.
Joe Giordano sort of brings us back on track with his Prophetic Justice, and Michael Thomét introduces us to his two long-running, multi-story adventurers in Bear and Bird at Clairmont Circle.
From there we hopscotch between the ‘Cosy’-ness of Michele Bazan Reed’s The Coveted Coverlet, and the much harder edged The Knockoff King from Paul R. Paradise.
There is that classic line that snitches get stiches, but does that apply to wildlife? Namely The Tell-Tale Armadillo from Mike Tuggle? And after pondering that question, Edward Lodi then transports us into a Fredric Brown-esque world of humour and observation with his Death on a Pedestal.
Lynn Hesse moves us from the Private to the Public side of investigators with her Bitter Love, then Conestoga Number Four from Kelly Zimmer turns us almost full circle with a visit to American Cosy country.
And after John M. Floyd’s Triangles, what better way to close this collection than with Shannon Lawrence and her Alligator in a Sweatsuit. Please note, no fictional alligators were harmed in the creation of this short story.
As with all of these anthologies, we hope you’ll find something that you immediately like, as well as something that takes you out of your comfort zone – and puts you into a new one.
In other words, in the spirit of the Murderous Ink Press motto: You never know what you like until you read it.