Current Issue Highlights
The Janus Month
by Linda Landrigan
The New Year is a time for reflection, a time to look back at our past and forward to our future. In this issue we have fourteen stories that do exactly that with a good share of historicals from all over that entertain as well as make us think. We also have topical stories that capture the passions of the day. What these stories show together is that crime is forever.
FICTION
by John H. Dirckx
A shaft of spring sunshine found its way, as sunshine will, through grimy windows aloft, and dust and clutter below, to illuminate a stunningly beautiful antique mahogany reception desk in the lobby of a deserted hotel, at which two men were engaged in earnest conversation.
Brian Westcott tapped a laptop screen with the tip of his pencil. “Eric, this stuff is never going to make it all the way here from Hungary by surface mail in six weeks.”
As Westcott rotated his body slightly for the next take, a young woman dashed forward and gently pulled a wrinkle out of his shirtsleeve. “The hair’s coming down again,” she told him, “but I can’t do anything with it between takes. Maybe as soon as we start shooting again you could swish it back . . .” READ MORE
by Eric Rutter
The sound of the front door opening interrupted Charles’s and Martin’s idle conversation. As they sat listening to the visitor cross the outer office, Charles glanced at Martin. On days when they were feeling lighthearted they would try to predict whether the caller was a client of Charles’s, or Martin’s wife come from across the street to tell him a patient had turned up. But Martin didn’t notice Charles’s glance, he just gazed peacefully at the far wall, fingering the cup of apple cider he held balanced on one thigh. Charles thought the footsteps didn’t sound like Betty’s, so the visitor must be looking for him—in need of a lawyer, not a doctor.
He was only half right—the visitor was looking for him but not because he was a lawyer. The figure who stepped into the doorway of his private office was his sixteen-year-old son, Joshua. READ MORE
DEPARTMENTS
Booked & Printed
by Laurel Flores Fantauzzo
Guilt is an ambivalent engine. Besides being that which a court of law might determine, guilt can weigh a spirit down, drive a person in unexpected directions, and linger far past any hint of external judgment. But perhaps the most hazardous situation is when a person acts in the total absence of guilt, incapable of carrying any blame at all. This month, Booked & Printed explores protagonists measuring their relationships to their own culpability, or their unwillingness to take responsibility for it. READ MORE
We give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the photograph provided in each issue. The story will be printed in a future issue. READ THIS ISSUE’S WINNING STORY
Scrambled Clue
by Mark Lagasse
Unscramble the letters of each numbered entry to spell the name of an Easy Rawlins book. MOST RECENT PUZZLE
Look for our January/February 2025 issue on sale at newsstands on December 8, 2025. Or subscribe to AHMM in print or in a wide variety of digital formats.