Mystery Magazine: March 2024 (Mystery Weekly Magazine Issues)

At the cutting edge of crime fiction, Mystery Magazine presents original short stories by the world’s best-known and emerging mystery writers.

The stories we feature in our monthly issues span every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries. Evocative writing and a compelling story are the only certainty.

Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and entertained--whether you enjoy the style of the Golden Age of mystery (e.g., Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle), the glorious pulp digests of the early twentieth century (e.g., Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), or contemporary masters of mystery.

★ In this issue ★

In our cover feature, “The Five Wives Book Club” by Victor Kreuiter, book club members—long-time friends—are inspired by their favorite fictions to manage their lives.

“Someone Went And Killed Tickly Thomason” by Robert Mangeot: Detective S.R. Jefferson senses foul play behind a country gold legend’s conveniently unsurprising heart attack. The path to police glory runs through a squabbling family, a party barge, and a fateful hoedown showdown.

In “Solitary” by Leland Neville, a work release program offers an inmate a long-awaited opportunity to start over in life. His past, however, has other plans.

“Yellow Tulips” by Peter W. J. Hayes: Sent to Ankara to save a missing CIA source, Levon Grace finds himself at dinner with one of Turkey's most senior intelligence officials, who has a story to tell and a deadline to keep.

In “Four To Go” by Richard Ciciarelli, mystery writer Sheryl Case decides to murder her demanding writing partner, Myra Borne, and go it alone.

In “The Cold Case Geniuses” by David Krugler, two coders have a million-dollar idea: an app that enables armchair sleuths to crack unsolved murders on their phones. Just before they launch the app, an armed intruder breaks in. Could he be one of the killers?

“The Princess” by Janice Law: Amber is a chilly beauty who is not only looking for a prince but expects one to preform some difficult and dangerous task to win her. Such an occasion arises, and to the narrator's surprise, murder follows.

In “No One Will Believe You” by Paul Ryan O'Connor, a down-on-his-luck dishwasher is mugged at gunpoint by the most famous movie star in the world.

“The Wisdom Of Solomon,” a You-Solve-It by Eric B. Ruark: If Solomon had had to deal with three pre-teens in a snit, who knows how much wisdom he would have accumulated.

Cover Art by Robin Grenville Evans