by Paula Gail Benson

This past weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed Desert Sleuths’ WriteNow virtual conference. One panel had short mystery fiction experts Barb Goffman (whose short stories have been nominated for 43 awards, winning 3 Agathas, 2 Macavities, 1 Anthony, and 1 Silver Falchion, and who received this year’s Golden Derringer Lifetime Achievement Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society), Michael Bracken (author of almost 1,300 stories and editor of 32 anthologies), John Connor (editor and publisher of Murderous Ink Press and Crimeucopia), and moderator Jay Hartman (a 30 year publishing veteran, who previously served as Editor-in-Chief for Untreed Reads and now operates Misti Media). They gave an excellent overview of the craft and business of writing short crime fiction.

Saul Golubcow’s The Cost of Living and Other Mysteries contains three novellas with protagonist Frank Wolf, a Holocaust survivor turned private detective in 1970s New York City. Frank’s grandson Joel has been his chief assistant. Saul’s first novel, Who Killed the Rabbi’s Wife?, which be released on November 1, 2024, provides a larger canvas for Frank and Joel to conduct their investigations as well as introducing Joel’s wife Aliya, who happens to be a life-long friend of the victim’s daughter. I’m grateful to have been one of Saul’s advance readers. I highly recommend all his work.

Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction is available for pre-order and will be released November 8, 2024. The anthology is inspired by the Music of Aerosmith, a rock and roll icon for fifty years that has announced it will no longer tour. This anthology is edited by Michael Bracken and features stories by the following sixteen crime fiction authors, Ed Ridgley, Bill Baber, Eve Fisher. Avram Lavinsky, John C. Bruening, Jeffrey Marks, Mary Dutta, Tom Mead, Steve Liskow, Joseph S. Walker, Adam Meyer, John M. Floyd, Leone Ciporin, M.E. Proctor, Tom Milani and Jim Winter. With all these extraordinary writers, this anthology is a must read.