He Had to Die: Guest Post by Anna Scotti

Sometimes I truly regret having Federal Marshal Owen James captured, tortured, and killed while in pursuit of a felon. 

Sure, writers are often instructed to "murder our darlings," but Owen was such a darling! He was never the star of my "librarian on the run" series for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, but he was a featured player. Six foot-two or -three, tawny hair, eyes variously described as the color of the sky over Huntington Beach, the color of faded denim, the cerulean blue of new hydrangeas, the - well, you get the idea. He even wore the sleeves of his crisp cotton shirts rolled up to show muscled forearms, and gentlemen, in case you're not aware, that's a look we ladies love. And Owen wasn't just good to look at - he was good inside! He resisted the charms of his WITSEC charge, Lori, for eight years, despite her relentless flirting and sometimes cringe-worthy pleading for a kiss - or more - to take the edge off the loneliness of nights on the run. Owen gave up his beloved job and went rogue in an effort to free Lori from her servitude toward the Feds. He even left her a good hunk of dough in his will - after taking care of his parents, of course. 

But Owen had to die, and I'm the one who killed him. 

Oh, I teased for a bit. Lori first meets Owen - and experiences his kindness and courtesy - in one of the few "librarian" stories not originally published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, "Perfumes of Arabia." He's a nice guy, but Lori - known to us then as "Juliet" - is still smarting from betrayal by her one-time fiancé, cartel boss Mateo Andres. In the next few stories, Owen is mentioned, but only peripherally. Lori - now known as "Cam" - is busy making a fool of herself over the handsome and happily married Detective Antonio Morales in "No Legacy So Rich," and Owen is standing by to pick up the pieces when Lori then falls into the arms of a murdering lawyer in "A Heaven or a Hell." Throughout the series, Lori sometimes references the time Owen saved her by strangling a paid killer with his bare hands. We also know he gave her an expensive folding knife because she hates guns, despite having aced her lessons from Detective Morales. Owen doesn't play a major part in every story, but the bond between the two is growing. In "It's Not Even Past," Lori blows her cover and explodes the tidy life she's constructed for herself. Owen whisks her out of town, but not before Lori puts both her mother and Detective Morales' family in jeopardy, causes her dog to be murdered, and loses everything she has - job, friendships, apartment - once again. Lori really has no one left to lean on but Owen, who will share a beer with her and hint at "maybe someday," but who would never dream of taking advantage of the marshal/witness power differential. 

Lori's next adventures take place in a beach town in South Carolina. Owen is very much a part of "Sonia Sutton's" lonely life, but at the end of "Into the Silent Land," he tells her he is being reassigned, and at the end of "A New Weariness," she learns that he is dead. 

Or is he? 

When I turned the story in to my editor at EQMM, she told me it was the best one yet, and then she exclaimed, "but Owen's not really dead…is he?" 

Hmmm. I gave her a sphinx-like smile and hoped she didn't realize that I didn't actually know, myself. 

Since the reader had not actually seen Owen die, but had only heard about it third-hand, the possibilities were endless. Indeed, in "Not With Hibiscus, but With Blood," Lori, now living as Dana Kane, is surfing a little and drinking a lot on the Hawaiian island of Maui. She comes to believe that Owen is very much alive… 

He's not. He's dead, although it takes some pretty brutal dialogue to convince her.   

I hated to do it, but it was necessary. Owen represented safety and security for Lori; though she's very bright and pretty damned courageous, Owen was always there to bail her out in an emergency. He snatched her out of harm's way more than a few times. But as Lori's character developed and became ever more cynical, streetwise, and resourceful, the safety net represented by Owen began to hold her back. If the reader - and Lori herself - could trust that Owen was always there in the shadows keeping a watchful eye on her, how could she truly evolve into the fully-realized character I'd imagined? I didn't want Lori to end up answering phones at Owen's private detective agency or folding his laundry in the basement of a suburban ranch house. 

Lori's next adventures, "Where Speaking Fails" and "Traveller from an Antique Land," take place back in L.A. Speaking is the final story in the collection, and the second that did not first appear in Ellery Queen. Lori is no longer in witness protection but still in hiding from her past. She hits bottom and begins to recover with the help of her friends. No love, no romance…but wait. In the next installment, coming sometime in 2026, Lori discovers that Owen had a younger brother…and he's missing. Stay tuned! 

***

Anna Scotti has recently been a finalist for the Derringer, Thriller, Claymore, and EQ Readers Choice Awards, as well as for the Macavity (for Schrödinger, Cat in 2023). Stories from Scotti's "librarian on the run" series for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine have been recorded for Rabia Chaudry's The Mystery Hour podcast and have been selected for Best Mystery Stories of the Year three times (Mysterious Press 2022, 2024, 2025). In June, Down & Out Books will release all of the "librarian" stories as a collection entitled "It's Not Even Past." 

Scotti also writes young adult fiction, literary fiction, and poetry. Her work can be found in journals ranging from The New Yorker to Lunch Ticket, Nimrod, and Chautauqua. Learn more at annakscotti.com

Memorial Day Mysteries //Memorial Day Crime Fiction

Memorial Day aka Decoration Day is a day of remembrance of those men and women who died protecting us, for those who didn't return home. Many people go to cemeteries and memorials on the last Monday in May, and there's a tradition to fly the flag at half mast. In the U.S. Memorial Day is part of a three day holiday weekend. Many think of this weekend as the beginning of Summer, a time for Barbecues, the Beach, the Cabin, and S'mores. Not planning a get-together? You can celebrate Memorial Day by reading some of these Mysteries set during the Memorial Day Weekend.

In memory of all who served their country, here's an updated list of Mysteries set during Memorial Day Weekend. Let me know if I've forgotten any titles. You may also want to check out my Veterans Day Mystery List.

Memorial Day Mysteries

Death is Like a Box of Chocolates by Kathy Aarons
Last Man Standing by David Baldacci
The Twenty Three by Linwood Barclay
Treble at the Jam Fest by Leslie Budewitz
The Decoration Memorial Day War by David H. Brown
Memorial Day by Sandra Thompson Brown and Duane Brown
Flowers for Bill O'Reilly: Memorial Day by Max Allan Collins

Black Echo by Michael Connelly  

Absolute Certainty by Rose Connors
One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer Fleming (not technically Memorial day, but it fits the theme)
Memorial Day by Vince Flynn

The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
Memorial Day by Harry Shannon
Beside Still Waters by Debbie Viguie
Who Killed the Neanderthal by Cheryl Zelenka

Children's Mysteries:

Trixie Belden: The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire by Kahryn Kenny
Sam's Top Secret Journal: Memorial Day by Sean Adelman, Siri Bardarson, Dianna Border & Andrea Hurst

Rosemary is for Remembrance. Check out the recipe for Rosemary Chocolate Chip Cookies on my other blog: DyingforChocolate.com

 

INFORMATION ON THE MACAVITY NOMINATING BALLOT

Just an FYI: 

If you're a member of Mystery Readers International, subscriber to Mystery Readers Journal, or a Friend of Mystery Readers, you should have received a Macavity Nominating ballot. Check your spam filter, or send me a note, if you'd like to nominate. 

The coveted Macavity is awarded in five categories. 

Check out the past winners and nominees.

Thanks to Gabriel Valjan for this great 'reminder' graphic! One more category not lists: Best Non-Fiction/Critical.

And, Best Non-Fiction Critical

Cultivating that Old Sense of Place: Guest Post by Christopher Deliso

When tinged with travel writing and journalism, the mystery genre feels a lot more familiar—I don’t mean cozier—to me. Probably, this is largely because much of my professional writing background has involved these non-fiction fields during the past twenty-five years. And yet, my readings of classic mystery works since 2021 (when I started writing my first mystery novel) also seems to bear out the idea that from its inception with Edgar Allan Poe, and through all its various divergences since, the genre has been marked fundamentally by aspects of travel writing and journalism, directly but often indirectly.
 
In the following brief summary, I will provide three examples from well-known works where the travel or journalistic aspect can be discerned. In the bigger picture, this cross-pollination of approaches is practically useful to authors today, I believe, specifically for the strengthening of the literary character of a mystery story—in terms of both characters and settings, and the spirit that permeates the tale.
 
That is: the singularity of any given story should have just as much to do with its setting and its people as it does with its ciphers, locked-room ingenuity, or other devices of the genre that could be plotted anywhere. The best mystery (and other) stories are memorable to a large extent because authors succeed in convincing readers that the story happens, of necessity, to the characters involves, and in the places and times in which they are set. The informed articulation of a specific topos and a convincing historicity (even if the story is not ‘historical,’ in the broadest sense) create additional nuance and depth to a mystery story, elevating the most memorable beyond what might otherwise be simply a generic puzzle absent of topical and character necessity.

 
Note: for the reader’s enjoyment, and to better demonstrate the stories discussed here, I will include a special shout-out, in the form of relevant links to recitations by British voice actor Tony Walker of the Classic Detective Stories channel on YouTube.
 
I tested my observation in yet another listening of the genre’s honorary original, and still one of the most remarkable literary detective stories, Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ For both his great puzzle-solver, the Frenchman Dupin, and his native city of 1840s Paris, are so deftly described in passing, in a thousand accidental (yet essential) details that the magic of the piece comes to life. For the eventual explanation of an escaped orangutan with a razor blade to be at all believable, the author must conjure sufficient images of a city in which both the architecture and personalities make it possible. In order for Poe’s city to be fit for the genius of Dupin the occasional detective, it must also be habitable for that hapless Maltese sailor with his strange pet.
 
Further, and most extraordinary, is how Poe manages to encapsulate both the mood of the characters and their location while foreshadowing and mimicking the very concept of the locked-room mystery that he is about to detail, in the early descriptive scene, in which Poe’s narrator first discusses life in Paris with Dupin:
 

“Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we should have been regarded as madmen — although, perhaps, as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors whomsoever. Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone. 

It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to be enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed all the massy shutters of our old building; lighting a couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then busied our souls in dreams — reading, writing, or conversing, until warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we sallied forth into the streets, arm in arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.” 
 
A second story in which sense of place and character struck me, for a different reason, was Dorothy L. Sayers’ ‘Murder at Pentecost.’ This story of mad professors and a murder at an apocryphal Oxonian college not  only reminded me of Oxford (and perhaps, how much has remained the same there over time). Yet it also really emphasized the value that a good narrator can bring in terms of reinforcing character identities through proper reading of dialogue. In the story, Tony Walker does an excellent job of narrating the subtle tonal differences between the aaimless upper-class English undergraduate, the (perhaps) mad professor, and the working-class English policeman on the case. This comprehension of character dialogue through regional accents adds great depth and richness, bringing us closer to Sayers’ original intent and making the story more singular in its new reading.
 
A separate mention of another Classic Detective Stories recitation comes from a book I very much hope to cover in more detail for the Mystery Readers Journal next year. That is the classic 1939 thriller by Eric Ambler, The Mask of Dimitrios (published in the US as A Coffin for Dimitrios). The excerpt is called Belgrade 1926

https://christopherdeliso.substack.com/about

, and recounts a fictional espionage trap set in that city in that year. Ambler’s opening contextualization of the contemporaneous geopolitical situation of that era in Europe makes his scenario more believable: that is, how and why ah international mster-spy would attempt to trick a Yugoslav civil servant into selling him, by hook or by crook, a top-secret map of planned mine fields in the Adriatic meant to deter the threat from fascist Italy. The further discussion of the Greek international agent Dimitrios (based on the real-life arms dealer, Basil Zaharoff, and how he attempts to interfere with the map business is recounted in gripping prose, in one of the first realist espionage thrillers.
 
Since 2021, I’ve brought on board the lessons of stories like these into the writing and editing of my own Detective Grigoris novel, which is set in Southeast Europe at the turn of the 21^st century. I’ve applied my own diverse writing and research experience to the novel. At the same time, I’ve observed from the classics of the genre that ‘fleshing out’ a mystery with ekphrasis and richly-local characters are things of long-standing.
 
Such an observation gives me hope not only that my work will be published, but that my approach confirms and complements a pre-existing (if under-discussed) dimension of what makes the mystery genre so interesting for diverse groups of readers.

***

Christopher Deliso is an American author, former long-term contributor to The Economist Intelligence Unit, IHS Jane’s, and co-author of over twenty Lonely Planet travel guides for five Southeast European countries. He has been widely published in major global media, and his first Detective Grigoris story, "The Mystery of the Scavenging Crabs," was published in January 2025 in the Crimeucopia anthology, Hey! Don’t Read That, Read This! (Murderous Ink Press, UK). 

Subscribe to Christopher Deliso’s Substack for occasional articles on literature, history, travel and reviews.

THE BETTER SISTER: Coming to Prime Video

The Prime Video limited series The Better Sister premieres May 29, but you might want to read the book before you watch! The TV series is an adaptation of Alafair Burke's 2019 thriller The Better Sister. 

The TV series is directed by Craig Gillespie starring Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks.

Here's the Trailer.  

THE SPOTTED OWL AWARD: Friends of Mystery

The Friends of Mystery 2025 Spotted Owl Award: 

Bad River by Marc Cameron

The Spotted Owl Award prize is bestowed by Friends of Mystery (Portland, OR) to celebrate crime fiction produced by authors living in the Pacific Northwest (Alaska, British Columbia, Canada, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington).

Runners-up:

2. Baron Birtcher for Knife River
3 (tie). Rene Denfeld for Sleeping Giants and Warren Easley for Deadly Redemption
4. J.A. Jance for Den of Iniquity
5. Phillip Margolin for An Insignificant Case
6. Katrina Carrasco for Rough Trade
7. Frank Zafiro and Colin Conway for The Silence of the Dead
8. Kerri Hakado for Cold to the Touch
9. Eric Redman for Death in Hilo

Congratulations to All!