I love to read mystery stories, new ones hot off the press and old favourites from times past. Currently, I am revisiting much-loved Agatha Christie classics and enjoying the intricate twists and turns of her clever tales. My husband, who shuns fiction—he’s an accountant who considers The Financial Post light reading—says that reading a steady diet of murder mysteries makes me paranoid and that I see sinister plots everywhere, but, ironically, the one time that I became involved in a murder, I had no idea that death was in the air.
So begins How Mary’s Garden Grew in the January/February 2024 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Don’t miss reading this intriguing tale, described by one reader with the following words: “With its well-crafted characters—characters you start caring for—this is a suspense story that the Queen of Crime herself would have been proud of writing!”
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A dinner-dance, costume-party cruise on the Island Queen; a New Year’s Eve fireworks display; a drop-dead
gorgeous blind date: it should have been the perfect night out. How was Lucy to know that someone had murder in mind?
But who is planning it? The choice is wide, and it’s definitely not Colonel Mustard or Miss Scarlet. On board are Prussian soldiers, pirates, Roman emperors and Egyptian queens, not to mention Lord Voldemort, Barbie, Elvis and Elton. Read All Decked Out for New Year’s Eve at https://blackcatweekly.com/b/p28T1
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What happens when The Devil himself yields to temptation? In the case of a libidinous baritone whose long-suffering wife is showing signs of rebellion, a diabolical plot seems to be the answer. In that lazy summer on the French Riviera, a question lingers in the air. Will the Devil get his due? Find out when you read The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea at Black Cat Weekly #117