Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Vol. 137 no. 6(2011)

Dennis LehaneStewart O'NanPatricia Powell

With wind in its sails and a salty sea breeze, our June issue cruises in with a great crew of crime writers whose fictional sleuths are strong on teamwork. . . . Start with the "The Chatelaine Bag," a Carpenter-Quincannon case from MWA Grand Masters Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, in which the 1890s P.I.s must ferret out the thief who ruined San Francisco's society event of the season; then check out Clark Howard's "Crystal Death," in which two DEA agents race the clock to find a Chicago drug dealer and end a rash of fatal overdoses. And you won't want to miss Eric Cline's "Two Dwarves and Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs," a chilling take on Poe's "Hop-Frog," in our Department of First Stories, in which the relationship between the jester Hopp-Frosch and the lovely Tripetta takes center stage.

We've got tales of loners, too, and of partnerships broken. Boston innkeeper Anna Hoyt travels to England, equally wary of being double-crossed by her patron and the enemy he sends her to spy on, in Dana Cameron's "Disarming" (sequel to her Edgar-nominated historical "Femme Sole"); and an English retiree becomes suspicious of his neighbors in a quaint seaside town in Caroline Benton's "A Game of Patience." In Maynard Allington's psychological thriller "The Appointment," a psychiatrist struggles to help her patient, who suffers from PTSD and finds the lines of reality and hallucination have blurred; and in Randall Silvis's "Snap," a man finds his trust is misplaced when an old friend returns to town--with a new woman in tow.

Finally, for some classic Hollywood-style suspense, see Robert Levinson's "The Killing of Stacey Janes" and Luis Adrián Betancourt's "Indiscreet Window" (Passport to Crime): In the former, a precocious fan club president has an ulterior motive: getting her revenge on the actress who killed her mother; and in the latter, a tribute to Rear Window, a man develops a one-sided relationship with the woman in a neighboring window.

CONTENTS:
Fiction: CRYSTAL DEATH by Clark Howard
Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Steve Steinbock
Fiction: DISARMING by Dana Cameron
Fiction: THE APPOINTMENT by Maynard Allington
Fiction: THE CHATELAINE BAG by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini
Passport to Crime: INDISCREET WINDOW by Luis Adrian Betancourt
Fiction: THE KILLING OF STACEY JANES by Robert S. Levinson
Fiction: A GAME OF PATIENCE by Caroline Benton
Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider
Fiction: SNAP by Randall Silvis
Department of First Stories: TWO DWARVES AND EIGHT CHAINED OURANG-OUTANGS by Eric Cline
Special Feature: EQMM WELCOMES A NEW BOOK REVIEWER