And They Lived Happily Never After

When I was little, before I learned how to read, my dad used to read fables and fairy tales to me before I went to sleep. We had a big book, and each night I would pick a story. Some of them scared the crap out of me (I'm looking at you, "Jack and the Beanstalk"--grinding bones into bread; no wonder I grew up to write crime stories). I wasn't scared just because of the stories themselves but because my dad was good at voices. I loved them.

These days, I think when people think of fairy tales, they picture the Disney version. A poor child with a wicked stepmother wakes up to find that mice cleaned the house for her, then birds tie ribbons in her hair before a fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a carriage and she's whisked off to a ball and, eventually, the good guys live happily ever after. It's wonderfully fantastic--unless you have musophobia, ornithophobia, or curcurbitophobia. What's curcurbitophobia? Fear of pumpkins. You've now learned your new word of the day. You're welcome.

But the earlier tales by the brothers Grimm and others were far darker. And not animated! Cinderella's stepsisters chopped off their heels and toes to shove their bloody feet into the glass slipper, then birds plucked out their eyes at the royal wedding. Hansel and Gretel escaped cannibalism by fooling the witch with poor eyesight and then pushing her into the hot oven. Rapunzel's prince fell from the tower into a thorn bush, ending up blind. (Too bad there were no eye surgeons in these tales. Those docs would have made a mint.)

It's these darker versions that I expect inspired many of the stories in a new anthology releasing today, Wish Upon A Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales. The book was edited by fellow SleuthSayers Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson. Its description says in part that the authors "reimagine familiar classics where the line between good and evil isn't always clear, dreams don't come true, and there are no happily-ever-afters." 

That is true (sort of) for my story in this book, "Little Red Riding Hood." My tale involves a blind date, a hopeful woman, and one very charming man. Lest you think this suave guy should be in a Cinderella-inspired story (and we have one of them, written by Donna Andrews), don't forget that even wolves can clean up well. My story has some fun Easter eggs I worked in that I hope readers will find and enjoy.

Wish Upon A Crime is available in trade paperback and ebook from the usual online sources, including Bookshop.org. Author Tara Laskowski (who doesn't have a story in the anthology), has called it "Gritty and tense [...] The crime authors here blend a modern, stark reality with the magic lore of old, and as a result bring a new meaning to the word 'grim.'"

The end. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)