The November 2016 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, out this week, includes my story “The Great Detective Reflects,” a very short piece of fiction inspired by my thoughts on Sherlock Holmes, if not directly by the Holmes character himself. That distinction might be too fine for me to explain effectively, but I hope that the resulting story proves successful—in its musings, in its tone, maybe even emotionally somehow, and throughout with an eye toward the act and the art of reading.
The full issue—part of EQMM‘s 75th anniversary year and this month celebrating the magazine’s critics and scholars—also features fiction by Anthony Boucher (from the archives!), Simon Brett, Dana Cameron, Meg Opperman, and more, plus essays by Jon L. Breen and Martin Edwards.
As Janet Hutchings explains in her column “From the Editor’s Desk,” “EQMM‘s distinction in the critical realm goes back to the very beginning. Founding editor Frederic Dannay was himself a leading mystery historian/critic, compiling (as Ellery Queen, with Manfred B. Lee) such works as Queen’s Quorum: A History of the Detective-Crime Short Story as Revealed by the 125 Most Important Books Published in This Field Since 1845. The belief Dannay and Lee held that the mystery deserved serious critical attention was one of the driving forces behind EQMM….”
The new issue celebrates that history as well as writers whose fiction is matched by their critical writings—and I’m honored to be among them.