Friday, February 7, 2025

SUPER BOWL CRIME FICTION AND OTHER FOOTBALL MYSTERIES: Super Bowl Sunday!


Super Bowl Sunday! I'm stoked, of course, because my original home team will be playing! Go, Eagles (or Iggles as they say in Philly)!!!

There's lots of real crime surrounding the Super Bowl: drugs, money, gambling, egos, and so much more. All fodder for the crime writer. So in 'honor' of Sunday's Super Bowl Game, I've updated my short lists of Super Bowl and other Football Mysteries. This is in no way a definitive list -- just some football crime fiction for you to enjoy in case you're not watching the Super Bowl! As always, I welcome additions!

If you're interested in other Sports Mysteries and essays on Football Mysteries, Mystery Readers Journal has had several Sports Mysteries issues. The last Sports Mysteries Issue of MRJ was Volume 25:4 (Winter 2009-2010). Available as PDF download

Super Bowl Mysteries

The Hidden Key by George Harmon Coxe
Super-Dude by John Craig
Cover-Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl by John Feinstein (YA)
Black Sunday by Thomas Harris
Paydirt by Paul Levine
The Last Super Bowl by Robin Moore & David Harper
4th and Fixed by Reggie Rivers
Murder at the Super Bowl by Fran Tarkenton and Herb Resnicow
Life's Work by Jonathan Valin
Killerbowl by Gary K. Wolf

Movie:  
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)
 
Other Football Mysteries (not including British Football, of which there are many titles)


The Professor by Robert Bailey
Memory Man; The Might Johns by David Baldacci

Rough and Tumble by Mark Bavaro
Pass Judgment by Jerry Brewer
Sweeper by Steve Bruce 
Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben
Coliseum by Barney Cohen
Et Tu Brady by Joseph Collum

Football is Murder by Kathy Cranston
All Saints Day: A New Orleans Football Mystery by Sean Patrick Doles
Backfield Boys by John Feinstein
Under the Stadium Lights by Hunter Mills Gallo

Day of the Ram by William Campbell Gault
Murder at Cleaver Stadium by Douglas Lee Gibboney
Quarterback Trap by Dallas Gorham
Double Reverse; Ruffians by Tim Green
Playing for Pizza; Bleachers by John Grisham
Bleeding Maize and Blue by Susan Holtzer
Crown of All Virtues by Reece Kepler
The Prophet by Michael Koryta
Two-Minute Warning by George LaFountaine
Bump and Run by Mike Lupica
The Draft by Wil Mara
Dead Ball Foul by Kayla McGrady
A Cardinal Offense by Ralph McInerny
Parker's Blood by William Miller
Foul Play; Dead Ball; Off Side; Killer Pass; Foul Play: Own Goal by Tom Palmer

12th of Never by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
The Jook by Gary Phillips
Foul by Will J. Robson

Winter and Night by S. J. Rozan
A Nutcracker Nightmare by Christina Romeril
Sudden Death by David Rosenfelt
Marked Man; Red Card by Mel Stein
The Footballer by Ben Stevens
The Football Manager Murders by Chris Tookey
A Touch of Death by Charles Williams

Short Stories:  

The Mighty Johns, edited by Otto Penzler

Nonfiction: 
Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (winner of the 2011 Edgar for Best Fact Crime)
All-American Murder by James Patterson & Alex Abramovich

Children's:

Bones and the Football Mystery by David A. Adler, Barbara Johansen Newman (Illustrator)
The Mystery of the Stolen Football by T. J. Edwards, Charles Tang (Illustrator)
The Big Bling Blitz; The Two-Minute Warning by David A. Kelly
The Football Fiasco by Mike Lupica
Courtney Case and the Missing Football by Jeannie Meekins

Thursday, February 6, 2025

The Case of the Baffled Barrister: Guest Post by Andrew McAleer


There can be no question about it whatsoever—the evidence is all in! 

…Or is it? 

Traditional legal fiction enthusiasts would likely agree well beyond a reasonable doubt that Perry Mason is Raymond Burr and Raymond Burr is Perry Mason. Burr did such a masterful job portraying the world’s cleverest and cunning attorney that it’s nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction. I mean…who wouldn’t want a real Perry Mason a.k.a Raymond Burr representing them on a murder beef?   

It doesn’t matter that Burr never passed the bar or practiced law—he’s Perry Mason in the eyes of legal drama connoisseurs. From 1957-1966 and then 1985-1993, Burr’s command courtroom presence, encyclopedic knowledge of criminal procedure, and destructive cross-examination complemented with his basso voice, got his clients out of every conceivable criminal jam possible. Okay so Mason pretty much handled murder cases exclusively, but no reason to quibble here on a legal technicality. That’s Burr’s job. 

…Or is it?

If you’re inclined to side with Burr, you’d better first listen to this surprise witness’s testimonial evidence before committing fully. 

Bailiff, call the next witness! 

Hollywood-Walk-of-Fame Star and Emmy Award-winning actor – Raymond Burr!
            
According to the 1963 Celebrity Register, Burr jested about his inability to present a complicated legal criminal defense. “I’ve never managed to solve any of the cases until I read them through. In fact, I’ve often been puzzled about who committed the crime after we finished shooting the script.”
            
Oh well, maybe Burr wasn’t the great barrister we imagined, but he does top the honesty charts and, as any good lawyer fresh out of law school will advise you, the truth will always set you free. After all, honesty is the best policy.

…Or is it? 
***
 
Andrew McAleer is the author of the Henry von Stray British classic mystery adventures and served in Afghanistan as a U.S. Army Historian before returning to public service in the criminal justice system. The latest von Stray mystery, "The Singular Case of the Bandaged Bobby” appears in Mystery Magazine (September 2024). Von Stray’s A Casebook of Crime (January 2025 Level Best Books). Instagram: @mcaleermysteries        
  

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

How A Spark Becomes A Story: Guest Post by Jacqueline Faber

The girl’s face began haunting me months before I started writing about her. I remember the first time she appeared in the foggy, post-dream haze of early morning. I’d just woken up, still dark outside, and there she was, alive in my mind with details so distinct, I felt surely I must know her. Her image came to me on a missing person poster. Long, dark hair parted in the middle. A stare that seemed at once settled and agitated. Young and old beyond her years. Who was she? I didn’t know. I would have to write about her to find out. 
 
Ask any author and they’ll tell you that ideas come from everywhere. Sometimes they lurch into being from dark and dismal headlines. The real world offers up fodder more disturbing than our psyches can conjure. Other times, ideas creep up slowly, pulling themselves into existence as amalgamations of our own histories, memories, and cognitive landscapes. For me, Lucia Vanotti sprang into existence in the form of her absence. A college girl, already missing, her fictional presence asserting itself in the murky no-man’s-land of predawn hours. Lucia arrived with her own demands. Her own story to tell, one that I would unearth from the recesses of my imagination, but that felt like it came from elsewhere. Truly, it did. 
 

In a way, the process of writing the character of Lucia Vanotti, a college girl who disappears from her Southern university campus, felt like excavation. What was she up to in the year before she vanished? Who were her friends? Her enemies? What were the contents of her mind? For me, the writing process began with these questions. I envisioned her at a frat party, hooking up with a boy from class. When she exits his bedroom, she heads downstairs in search of her boyfriend. Her boyfriend! What? He was downstairs the whole time!? How could she? Why would she? Each question demanded an answer. Each answer gave rise to a new question. 
 
Lucia’s story is one half of my thriller, The Department. Her narrative traverses the events that lead to her disappearance. The other half is told through the perspective of Neil Weber, a philosophy professor who becomes obsessed with her after she’s vanished. I felt his story take shape as a counterpoint to hers. He discovers pieces of her past, which he interprets in certain ways. Yet when we witness the events through Lucia’s eyes, they reveal themselves in more complex terms, challenging our facile beliefs that we ever fully understand what it is we are seeing. 
 
Thematically, this novel asks big questions. About loss, what it means to have and to lose. What it means to bear witness. What it means to mourn or to fail at mourning. And above all, how to live with the traumas that demand we simultaneously remember and forget in order to survive. 

***
 
Jacqueline Faber holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Emory University and has taught at New York University. Her work explores questions about memory, loss, language, and desire. Steeped in philosophical, psychological, and literary themes, her writing is grounded in studies of character. She lives with her family in Los Angeles. The Department is her debut novel. Connect with Jacqueline online at jacquelinefaber.com and Instagram at @jaxfaber. 

Cartoon of the Day: Dogs

Reign and Bella!



Saturday, February 1, 2025

INAUGURAL DERRINGER AWARD FOR BEST ANTHOLOGY FINALISTS

The Short Mystery Fiction Society has announced the Finalists for the Inaugural Derringer Award for Best Anthology. Congratulations to all!

Devil's Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024, edited by Susan Oleksiw, Ang Pompano, and Leslie Wheeler — with Leslie Wheeler and 3 others. 

Friend of the Devil: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead, edited by Josh Pachter 

Larceny & Last Chances: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense, edited by Judy Penz Sheluk 

Murder, Neat: A SleuthSayers Anthology, edited by Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman 

New York State of Crime: Murder New York Style 6, edited by D.M. Barr and Joseph R.G. De Marco 

The 13th Letter, edited by Donna Carrick

DEATH IN PARADISE: Season 14 news!


If you caught the Christmas episode of Death in Paradise last December, you know there's a new detective on Ste. Marie. Don Gilet plays Londoner Detective Inspector Mervin Wilson. Now we have a date for the new season here in the U.S. Death in Paradise will release on BritBox on February 19. The series will air and stream weekly.  

Following DI Mervin Wilson's introduction in last year’s Christmas special, the holidaying Mervin was recruited to Honoré’s Police Station to help solve the case of a serial killer targeting Santas. His brusque manner and impatience to be back in busy London didn’t endear him to his colleagues. But, as he eventually confided to Commissioner Patterson (Don Warrington), he’d come to Saint Marie to reconcile with his estranged mother – a woman who he later found out had died some months ago…and was possibly even murdered. 

Season 14 begins with Mervin resolved to remain on the island. The recovery of a body from a ravine rattles his colleagues, and there's the case of a game show contestant fatally stabbed while on a zip line to solve. His fellow officers have their own share of personal dramas, too. DS Naomi Thomas (Shantol Jackson) is shaken when an ex unexpectedly arrives from St Barnabas, and Darlene (Ginny Holder) decides to mentor the fresh-faced new Officer Benjamin Brice (Anthony J Abraham). But she’s not sure if she’s up to the task.


Cartoon of the Day: Cats

 Happy Caturday!