A quick post today, given an intensely busy schedule (a final meeting with an independent study student, another two dozen essays to grade, and a suddenly dead iPhone to figure out how to fix)… but I’m glad to have finally caught up with David Dean’s latest story for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Dean is one of my favorite short story writers, and “The Devil You Know” (from EQMM‘s June issue) follows a young teenager slowly learning the truth about her intensely secretive grandmother—and about herself—on a day when sudden whim led her to skip school and return home early. Several things in the balance here—a combination of darkness and light, including a brief flirtation between the teenager and a police officer checking things out in the neighborhood—but in general the story traces a long legacy of violence (not uncommon in Dean’s work) and turns an eye on political terrorism too (a theme I don’t recall from his previous stories). More to say, but duty calls. — Art Taylor