At the Metropolitan Museam, a janitor discuses the authenticity of a Bruegel piece with a visiting art-lover. There is more here than meets the eye…

Our 68th weekly issue has several holiday tales to spice up the season, including an original (“Merry Library Murder,” by N.M. Cedeño, courtesy of Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken) and some modern classics by Heather Critchlow (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman) and one of my own favorite authors, Nina Kiriki Hoffman (she’s amazing!) Cynthia Ward has selected an exciting fantasy from Milton J. Davis, plus we have great tales by Ray Bradbury, Lester del Rey, and James Holding, a Sex...

The Black Cat web site has been around for almost four years now, serving up a weekly buffet of new and classic mysteries—and more recently science fiction—to thousands of readers each week. Rather than continue to release all these novels and stories as individual ebooks, we have decided to bundle them up into a convenient weekly magazine…which is a lot more fun to work on!So here is Black Cat Weekly #1, the September 5, 2021 issue, for your enjoyment pleasure.To ...

Charles Deschamps, the Paris couturier, was going to bring down necklines in his next collection and one man knew about it six months ahead of time. Foreknowledge of a fact like that is all a good consultant needs to make him dream dreams and see visions: dreams of idleness and sybaritic luxury, and visions tinted uniformly green, like the folding money which alone can make such dreams come true. Even if it's not exactly ethical. Or legal.

An inspector investigating the death of a blackmailer finds a suspect—but the man has an alibi. There's something fishy about it, but the inspector can't quite put his finger on what.

Pacing the streets of the South Side in the dark, dangerous, dragging hours before dawn, Kangaroo Kelly would often feed himself cheerfully this little morale booster: “Any of these mugs rub me out, even by accident, they’re dead, too. And they know it. For there’s six hundred cops in this town who’ll get them for it if it takes a hundred years. I’m a cop. And you don’t kill cops. Unless you want a fast ticket to hell yourself.”

When an old professor of art informs a museum curator that a piece his institution owns is actually half of a full statue—whose other section is housed at the Louvre—an old crime begins to unravel.

Vetuka of the Shark Clan, anging Melanesian fishermen and ,diver is approached by his nephew Likuva and Japanese friend Michiko to find the wreck of the WW II-era Japanese warship Shima Maru, which was carrying 50,000 gold yen. They find the ship and make plans to retrieve the gold, but Vetuka discovers they have something far more nefarious in mind.

James Holding enjoys a reputation as one of the more prolific contributors to the mystery magazines of the 1960s and 1970s. (Our bibliography shows nearly 200 stories published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, etc.) He had series, such as the "Leroy King" stories (which poke gentle fun at "Ellery Queen"). He had standalones. He had mysteries of every sort imaginable -- and this volume includes a selection of 24 choic...

After the ambulance carries away a stricken guest, a husband and wife linger on a Gulf beach amid the wreckage of their cookout. Beer cans, paper plates, charred skewers, and a dying fire surround them as their conversation slips from sympathy to something far more chilling. The husband, fortified by warm scotch, begins to gloat—and to explain.What unfolds beside the embers is a confession dressed up as cleverness, a perfect murder built from a magazine article on common backyard p...

This issue, we have an original mystery by dbschlosser (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken), a recent tale by Bruce Robert Coffin (courtesy of Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman), and a slightly older tale by James Holding. Our mystery novel is As a Thief in the Night, by R. Austin Freeman—part of his Dr. Thorndyke series. And, of course, a solve-it-yourself puzzler from Hal Charles.On the science fiction side, we have an original story by Larry Tritten, plus classics...

When a mysterious visitor arrives in the small town of Havenwood, the locals are wary. Rumors spread about the stranger's unusual abilities and unclear motives. But young Elena sees beyond the gossip and forms an unlikely friendship that will be put to the test when dangerous secrets come to light. To protect her new friend, Elena must find the courage to stand up to fear and prejudice before it's too late.