Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007

Editor’s Notes: Details, details by Linda Landrigan

The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Short stories depend on the effective employment of well-chosen details, the details that reveal a place, a character, or an era.

For O’Neil De Noux, those details often concern the city of New Orleans, which he once again masterly evokes in his latest John Raven Beau story, “Down on the Pontchartrain.” His depiction of the city is all the more poignant in this story, which occurs B.K. — before Hurricane Katrina wreaked its destruction. In the subsequent Conversation, Mr. De Noux talks a bit about his own connection to the Crescent City and the effect Katrina has had on his life.

Not all series are rooted in the same locale. Gilbert M. Stack selects just the right details to establish a new setting for each tale of his peripatetic trio: bare-knuckle boxer Corey Callaghan, his trainer Patrick o’sullivan, and the lady gambler Pandora Parson. In “Pandora’s Journey,” the confines of a train make for a tight, tense crime drama.

Robert S. Levinson and Percy Spurlock Parker each place their characters in glamorous, deftly evoked locales, Hollywood and Vegas, respectively, and each shows us the more unsavory hazards of fame and fortune. In Mr. Levinson’s “A Prisoner of Memory,” an aging movie star is convinced she is being stalked. In Mr. Parker’s new Trevor Oaks story “Death at My Door,” the naïve granddaughter of a late mobster is blackmailed.

Jas. R. Petrin has established a thoroughly realized setting in his fictional End of Main stories, where the town’s retired police chief, Robideau, has now turned reluctant private eye. In “The Palace Roxy,” Robideau turns to the sundry and colorful characters of the Netley tavern to learn the secrets of a rundown movie theater.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch sets her latest tale on the beautiful Oregon coast, but what makes many of her stories distinctive is her attention to the details of her characters’ daily jobs. In “Incident at Lonely Rocks,” Oscar, in the course of doing his job, comes across a grisly crime scene.

L.A. Wilson, Jr., also expertly captures his characters in their daily lives, just at the moment when events conspire to upset the delicate harmony. “German Johnson and the Lost Horizon” takes place in post-World War II New York, where racism and evil have descended from the world stage to a small table in a restaurant in Harlem. The Post-War era may likewise be the setting for Barry Baldwin’s meditative tale, “Untying the Knot,” but it is very much a post-9/11 story as well.

Anyone who’s ever tried to decipher an instruction manual will appreciate the telling details of Neil Schofield’s cautionary tale “Murder: A User’s Guibe.” But if you’re inclined to be an overly empathetic reader, well, you’ve been warned.

We welcome two new authors this month, Tim Maleeny and Melodie Campbell. Mr. Maleeny (“The Weight”), an advertising executive in San Franscico, is the author of the recently published novel Stealing the Dragon, from Midnight Ink. His second novel in that series, “Beating the Babushka,” comes out later this year. The author of “School for Burglars,” Melodie Campbell, of Oakville, Ontario, is a “director of marketing by day, crime writer by night.” She’s published numerous short stories and humor articles in Canada and the U.S. and also teaches humor and fiction writing at Sheridan College.