The Best is My Guest

This is my seventeenth review of the best short mysteries of the year. 

If you mention this list, and I hope you do, please refer to it as something like "Robert Lopresti's best short mysteries of the year list at SleuthSayers," NOT as the "SleuthSayers' best of..." because my fellow bloggers are ruggedly independent and may well have opinions of my own. 

18 stories made my list this year, a tie for the highest with 2017. 11 were written by men and 7 by women.  And that brings up a question that has been bugging me for a while: men have always outnumbered women on my best-of list. Does that coincide with the number of stories I read or is something else going on? So last year I kept track of the gender of the authors I read.  These charts tell the story. You can decide what the results mean.

As long as we are looking at statistics, two sources were responsible for half the winners:  Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, with 5 stories, and Level Best with 4, Wildside scored  2.

5 stories were funny, 4, historic, and 4 had science fiction/fantasy elements. 3 were by foreign authors and 3 by my fellow SleuthSayers.

One author made the list twice this year, which I believe has happened only 4 times before.  And one author has achieved a record-breaking score of 6 appearances.

Okay, let's get started.

Andrews, Donna, "Dirty Deeds,"  in Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Michael Bracken, and Carla Coupe, Wildside Press, 2025.

The protagonist  is trying to be a dutiful niece, but Aunt Josephine is not making it easy.  Niece wants her to get rid of most of the stuff that is cluttering her house in a dangerous way. She should be glad when a nosy neighbor tells her a junk removal firm has just arrived at the aunt's house, but  Dirty Deeds is not any of the companies the niece helpfully researched... 

Beck, Zöe "Abreast Schwarztonnensand," in Hamburg Noir, edited by Jan Karsten, Akashic Press, 2025.

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book. Beck is making her second appearance on this list.

This story  is written as a film script, dialog with occasional description. 

Kai-Uwe is a billionaire and the owner of a Hamburg family business. He has been cruising on the Elbe River in his yacht and has run over a man in a sailboat.  The story consists of  the man and his cronies discussing ways to avoid all responsibility, legal and financial, for the accident. 

Beetner, Eric, "The Cutting Room Floor,"  in Hollywood Kills, edited by Adam Meyer and Alan Orloff, Level Short, 2005.

Scott is editing episodes of a reality show.  Its success has been based on one of the contestants. Violet is blunt, rude, short-tempered. She "didn't come here to make friends." She was "a bad bitch and I know it, honey." She was ratings gold. 

But all bad things come to an end and she was getting kicked off the show. Who would have guessed that she wouldn't take the news well? 

Benedetto, J.F. "Never Bet Against Death,"  in Crimeucopia: A Load of Balls, edited by John Connor, Murderous Ink Press, 2025.

Tien-Tsin, China in 1901. The Boxer Rebellion has failed and Europeans and Americans have the run of the place. One of those Americans is Hezekiah Sauer, ex-cowboy, retired Marine, now a traveling man. 

An Englishman, a baronet no less, invites Sauer to watch a game of Ts'uchu or cuju, a ball game played by - gasp - women. The game is interrupted by the murder of a Russian consul and the Russian army officers who arrive to investigate enlist Sauer's aid.

Coward, Mat, "Come Forth and Be Glad in the Sun,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2025. 

These two mark Coward's third and fourth appearances on my best list.  

"Of all the people we have ever kidnapped, you are by far the rudest."

Gemma and Nathan, sister and brother, are the victims.  Nathan is the genius who never found anything to do with his life. Gemma is the grouchy businesswoman who runs an escape room business.

The kidnappers  are "permanent security consultants" but their boss is getting old and it "had been ages since they'd last been required to consult anyone concerning their security and their baseball bats and steel-capped boots were growing old with neglect." 

Coward, Mat, "Splash,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025.

Whatever happens -- environmental crises, pandemics, economic collapses -- rich people always end up richer, with the sole exception of those events which involve rich people having their heads chopped off.  It is largely for this reason that I am strongly in favour of rich people having their heads chopped off on a pretty regular basis.

And so we meet Pewter who has the unlikely occupation of helping the disgustingly rich (not to be confused with the merely rich or the insanely rich) find new ways to spend their money.  No doubt encounters with his clients led him to his opinion of decapitation.  But that isn't why he becomes a serial killer...

Hatcher, Alice. "Into the Weeds,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025.

Mark Rousseau  is the only cop in a small town.  He laments that "There's a certain kind of loneliness that comes from living in a place where you know everyone, but where most people associate you with the worst day of their lives."

An interesting observation, but the real star here is  Mrs. Stockard, eighty-five years old and, well: "People who don't know any better -- tourists -- would probably call Mrs. Stockard 'spry' or 'feisty'. I would call her 'mean.'"

She interrupts the cop's breakfast to tell him she struck a man on a back road that morning. Not her fault, of course. He "walked into my truck... Am I talking too fast for you?"

Kudlacz, C. J. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light,"  in Bat Out of Hell, edited by Don Bruns, 2025.

Ten miles to Canada and Jacob Mills has an empty gas tank, a flat tire, and his stepfather's body in the trunk.  Oh, it's also snowing.   And he's vague about who killed Clint, largely because of his concussion.  

Mallory, Michael, "The Eyes That Won't Die," in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025.

This marks the third appearance here by my fellow SleuthSayer.

It's 1946 and Jim Beckley survived the war but, like many of his comrades, he is having trouble with the peace.  He is living with his wife (who he only met three months before they married) in a hastily built Quonset hut village for ex-GIs and their families.  Memories of people he killed are haunting him and no one seems to understand.  Jobs are hard to find and so, for Jim, is the gumption to hunt for one. 

When the ex-GI living in the other half of his barrack is murdered and dumped in the street, Jim is  suspected of the murder.  

Mansfield, Nina, "Wax On, Wax Off," in  Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Michael Bracken, and Carla Coupe, Wildside Press, 2025.

Our protagonist is "Andrea Kalinski, PTA treasurer, locally known mommy-blogger, and founder of The Ageless Change, a recently launched skin-care line that targeted menopausal women." 

Unfortunately for her the Body Hair Acceptance Movement has moved into power and twenty-eight states have banned "unnatural hair removal for profit."  

Andrea is forced to go to an illegal waxing parlor to prepare for her work-and-recreation trip to Brazil, but someone gets killed.  "I hadn't signed up to investigate a murder. I wanted to battle an unjust law and wear a thong at Ipanema Beach."

Narvaez, Richie, "The Skies Are Red,"  in On Fire and Under Water, edited by Curtis Ippolito, Rock and a Hard Place Press, 2025.

The second appearance here for Mr. Narvaez.

This is an oral history of  a TV series that never aired, told in fragments of interviews with the cast and crew.  Criminal Takedown: Climate Change Cops was supposed to be the latest hit spinoff from that hugely successful television empire. 

This particular show was the brainchild  of Sal Cassady, who had made it big in hippy movies and was a dedicated environmentalist.  He thought that he could change hearts and minds by approaching the issue of climate change through the classic crime format.

Didn't quite work out.  The interviews show us a toxic combination of Hollywood ego, corporate doubletalk, denialism, and just bad (hah) chemistry. 

Phillips, Gary, "What Ned Said,"  in Hollywood Kills, edited by Adam Meyer and Alan Orloff, Level Short, 2005.

I learned a new term from this story: grief tech, the use of advanced to technology to help with the mourning process. 

In this story it refers to Ethereal Essence, a company  which uses videos, text messages, and other mementos to create a virtual reality experience between the mourner and the deceased.  The mourner here is Clayton and the deceased is his old friend Ned.  They have a terrific session together - right up to the end when Ned tells his pal that he had been murdered.

Ross, Stephen, "Murder in F Sharp,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2025.

Ross is a fellow SleuthSayer.

My name is Thomas Phipps, and I discovered a dead body today.

Thomas is sixteen and he doesn't have to investigate the murder because he has a strong suspicion about who did it.  Anyway, his bigger problem is that  his father wants him to keep taking classical piano lessons but Thomas wants to learn jazz.  

Simmons, Shawn Reilly,  "Level Up," in The Most Dangerous Games, edited by Deborah Lacy, Level Short, 2025.

 I have a story in this book.

Natalie is a PhD student in Medieval Literature.  No surprise then that she is in desperate financial straits.  The big surprise is when she receives an invitation from DARE+ that begins:

Congratulations! You've been selected for an exclusive opportunity to earn real money through fun challenges.  Based on your profile, you could earn up to $500 in your first week. Interested? 

What could possibly go wrong?

Spencer, David,  "The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea," in Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Song of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter, Level Best Books, 2025.

Teaser is a master thief and he has scuba dived to a private island to steal an ancient Japanese artifact.  His backup team, Pran and Gadge, are following him on radio.  In a story like this the reader usually contemplates one question: Will the gang triumph or will things fall apart at the last moment?

But halfway through the story there is a plot reversal.  And suddenly the action is quite different and so are the stakes.  

Tashiro, Tia. "The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe,"  in Clarkesworld, #220, January 2025.

College student Tom Monroe has just been murdered, and he finds it very inconvenient, but no worse than that. You see, ihs parents are very rich and have supplied him with a medtag which alerts the authorities when he dies and they have the money to have him revived.

Someone killed Tom in order to steal his money which is protected by voice and fingerprints.  His memories of the previous two months are cloudy, due to the revival process.  Can he figure out how this happened?

Van Dessel, Jessica, "The Violent Season,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2025

Helen wants a divorce.  Ed is reluctantly willing to go along, so she has "the look of defiant guilt that is displayed by people who are about to get their own way."  (Ooh, that's good.) 

Problem is it is 1956 and in New York the only grounds for divorce are desertion or adultery.  Ed is willing to provide the latter.  Well, he doesn't actually want to commit adultery but he has contacts who will put him in touch with a woman willing to pretend in front of a camera.

Pretty messy stuff but it gets worse when somebody ends up murdered.  And just when Ed thinks he has that problem solved, along comes...

Walker, Joseph S. "The Right Size of Favor,"  in Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2025.

Joe is, of course, another SleuthSayer. This is his sixth appearance on my best of the year list, which makes him the World Champion, so far.

My name is Josh Branson. I'm a seventh-grade English teacher, and I'm married to [private eye] Hard Line Graham's daughter.  I didn't get a summer school assignment, and Hard Line doesn't like people sitting around, so he told me I'm working for him.  He sent me here because he owes somebody a big enough favor to help Brenda Roman, but not a big enough one to show up himself.  I have precious little idea what I'm doing and I'm frankly terrified.

Brenda Roman is the county coordinator for a national charity fundraiser.  Someone is demanding a share of the money raised for charity: a protection racket.  Our teacher-turned-P.I. has no trouble finding the gangsters but they may not be so easy to deal with: "Christ, this guy's huge. He looks like he bullies offensive linemen for their lunch money." 

And that's all. Congratulations to the winners. The checks are in the mail. See you next year!