)There's no closing time for crime.Editors Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson order up hardboiled and noir stories by talented and award-winning crime-fiction writers.Tales of redemption, revenge, and rebirth fill these pages, and each story serves someone (or something) scattered or smothered or covered or chunked. If Michelin rated crime (not food), the diners in these stories would all be three-star establishments.You will never look at a roadside eatery the same ...

Scratch the surface of North Texas and the stereotypes of wide-open Western spaces with lots of football disappear, replaced by an endless series of contrasting images. Gleaming glass towers rise over stockyards redolent with the smell of livestock. Suburbs full of families sit just a few blocks from neon-lit nightlife districts. In any given neighborhood, you might hear conjunto music competing with country and western tunes. There are grimy bars and gleaming churches, funky stores and ne...

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 ...

Black Mask, the greatest American detective magazine of all time, is back with another issue. This time around, it includes nine new stories in the Black Mask vein by Brian Townsley, Jane Jakeman, Brian Stanley, Hannah Honeybun, William Burton McCormick, Frank Megna, Jonathan Sheppard, Michael Bracken, Jim Doherty, as well as a new article on Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister by Katrina Younes. In addition, Boris Dralyuk has kindly supplied his translation of Isaac Bab...

“[A] rich and varied anthology…” —Publishers Weekly, Starred ReviewJanet Hutchings, Chris Grabenstein, Gary Phillips, and Hilary Davidson headline a new world tour anthology of 22 stories from the heartland of America to Italy, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, England, and more.Passport to Murder is published in conjunction with Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, held in 2017 in Toronto, Ontario. As with the convention itself, the anthology spreads a broad cano...

This anthology draws together some of the best new stories of mystery and murder—compiled by the Anthony Award–winning crime fiction editor.This anthology collects the most original stories of murder by some of mystery fiction's most inventive talents from the United States and United Kingdom. With innovative new takes on locked-room mysteries and impossible crimes, these short stories are full of vexing conundrums and reality-defying puzzles. A murder has been comm...

When American secret agent Milo Stanich is found dead, agent Jack Wilson is sent to determine who killed him and to finish the job Stanich had been assigned: to keep a Pakistani scientist from selling fissile material to America’s enemies. In a wild, erotic tale of cross and double-cross that has Wilson working undercover to turn the Pakistani before the Russians can, Wilson beds the scientist, identifies Stanich’s killer, and brings his assignment-and the Pakistani scientist-to a satisfyi...

Renovating the long-unoccupied Canterbrem home is just the project Shelby Paulson needs after her marriage ends. As she breathes new life into the house, she discovers things about the home’s previous owner that change her life as well.

This is a special issue—our 50th, as you may have noticed from our cover. To celebrate, all past and present editors were to contribute a story. (It helps that they are also amazingly talented writers.) So we have stories from Michael Bracken, Barb Goffman, Paul Di Filippo, Darrell Schweitzer, and Cynthia Ward in addition to our other fare.But wait! There’s more!This issue features four original tales—Elizabeth Zelvin has a fantasy/mystery stories, Phyllis...

Every Tuesday when the bookmobile visits Quarryville, Texas, Graham Sugarman checks out five books. Five hefty books. When the librarian is murdered and the bookmobile stops visiting Quarryville, Mr. Sugarman’s well-ordered life is turned topsy-turvy.The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases the best in modern mystery and crime stories, personally selected by one of the most acclaimed short stories authors and editors in the mystery field.

This issue, we have a locked-room mystery novel, a far-future science-fantasy sword-and-sorcery novel, and 8 shorts featuring everything from dogs to cats to buried skeletons to time travel—and more! Truly, something for everyone.As always, special thanks to our Acquiring Editors, Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman, for picking a pair of terrific original tales. And our editorial board—Tom Easton, Ryan Hines, Vicki Erwin, Paula Messina, and Richard Prosch—who patiently read submissio...

When college student Bernie is dragged to a Christmas party where he knows nobody, the last thing he expects is to be naked and between the thighs of the sexiest man he's ever met.While older men aren't usually his thing, there's something about Professor Maeyer that gets Bernie going in ways he hasn't felt for a long time. So, when the party ends and everyone's gone home and it's just Bernie and Professor Maeyer, he gets a deeper education, the kind that can't be taught in class, ...