“Marketing The Sleeping City to The City That Never Sleeps” by Kurt Brokaw

NONFICTION: “The Sleeping City, like so many crime dramas that labored away in the era, won’t make most noir fans’ top ten lists. But its marketing was reflective of its time, more than most noirs that started out trying to hold their theater marquees alone and ended up as the underside of drive-in double bills….”

“The Wonderland Murders: an Interview with Michael Connelly” by Roger Leatherwood

INTERVIEW: “The part that’s most interesting thing to me and that’s never really surfaced is what happened after the murders….”

“Boilermaker” by Susan Hammerman

FICTION: “Delores didn’t want to think about what she was. Her job was done now, anyway….”

“She Walks” by Matthew Sorrento

POETRY: “She’ll keep things swift, dialed up…as they want it….”

“A Bleak 2020 Begins: from Status Update” by George Toles

FLASH FICTION: “They know everything. I should leave town pronto….” –February 12

“Eldritch” by Gary D. Rhodes

POETRY: “Nobody laughed when everybody laughed….”

“Death and Gingerbread” by Joseph Hirsch

The sergeant of the watch…stumbled onto the once-enchanted house…. We pulled up at the oxbow bend in the driveway paved with crushed sugar shards. The officers secured the crime scene, unspooling yellow tape between candy canes large as lamp standards. I lit a cigar to cover the smell of death and gingerbread. “What do we […]

“At the Other End of the Hall” by Kevin Pilkington

She was staring the way a novel does that no one will ever open…. I learned a lot about hunger early on. It was the way cancer ate, always starving, feeding on my grandmother in the bedroom down the hall from mine. It was the last month and the only time she lived with us. […]

“Nursemaid, Heavyweight, Gatekeeper to the Stars” by Dan Bronson

At the end of the business day, these assets walk right out of the vault and put themselves at risk….The only thing I know about publicity is how to suppress it. I’m a nursemaid. Six-two. Built like a heavyweight. A dandy scar across my cheek. And what do I do? I babysit…for the studios. One […]

“From Ridge to Norristown: A Few Days Away” by Tony Knighton

I counted out nine one hundred-dollar bills onto the desktop and took the pistol and ammunition. I considered suggesting that he give up the business for a while…. I drove through Philadelphia, onto Ridge Avenue and headed west. The antenna farm was visible above the horizon for a stretch, long lines drawn against the gray […]