Halloween Mysteries

Mystery Readers Journal has done lots of theme issues, and we have one coming up in 2009 on Crime for the Holidays that you won't want to miss. My favorite holiday is Halloween, and I have an incredible list of mysteries set during Halloween. No surprise! I don't really have enough room to list them all, but thought I'd list a few to get you through the day.

Halloween Party by Agatha Christie
Witches Bane by Susan Wittig Albert
The Hunt Ball by Rita Mae Brown
Sympathy For The Devil by Jerrilyn Farmer
A Few Dying Words by Paula Gosling
The Fallen Man by Tony Hillerman
Long Time No See by Susan Isaacs
Tricks: an 87th Precinct Mystery by Ed McBain
A Hole in Juan by Gillian Roberts
A Graveyard for Lunatics by Ray Bradbury
Death on Allhallowe'en by Leo Bruce
Ghostly Murders by P. C. Doherty
Trick or Treat by Leslie Meier
The Body in the Moonlight by Katherine Hall Page
Strange Brew by Kathy Hogan Trochek
All Hallow's Eve by Charles Williams
All Hallow's Evil by Valerie Wolzien

Short story mavens don't worry: Here's a list of Halloween Mystery Short Stories:
Trick and Treats edited by Joe Gores & Bill Pronzini
Asking for the Moon (includes "Pascoe's Ghost" and "Dalziel's Ghost") by Reginald Hill
Murder for Halloween by Cynthia Manson
The Haunted Hour, edited by Cynthia Manson & Constance Scarborough
Murder for Halloween: Tales of Suspense, edited by Michele Slung & Roland Hartman.
Mystery for Halloween (an anthology), edited by Donald Westlake

Not enough? Get out your Edgar Allen Poe and read "The Telltale Heart". Not quite Halloween, but in the spirit.

Boo!

Mystery Author Sally Wright in Berkeley

Many of our local Bay Area readers and writers were lucky enough to attend a fascinating evening with Sally Wright, author of the Ben Reese mysteries. What a terrific evening. Not only did Wright talk about her series featuring a university archivist and ex-WWII scout, but she talked about her research. Sally Wright, a Renaissance woman, has written music, poetry, academic articles and fiction. Clearly not all research takes place in the library, she regaled us with stories of hawking. One of the Ben Reese books involves hawking, and Sally Wright went to Scotland where she went into the field with different types of hawks--and ferrets.

Sally Wright takes the academic mystery to a whole new level. Her books, set in the 1960s, are 'historical' as well as academic. Writing a series so close in time to Ben's military service keeps them topical and relevant in techniques and situations. Sally Wright told us she started writing the Ben Reese books after she badgered an archivist she knew into telling her what he'd done in the war. The contrast between what that was, and what he did when she knew him, made her want to create a fictional character with those internal contrasts.

Watches Of The Night is book 5 in the Ben Reese series (published by Severn House Publishers in hardback in the UK in March 2008 and in the US in June 2008). Code of Silence, book 6, is a 1957 prequel to the series, to be published by Severn House Publishers in hardback in 2008. Read an excerpt.

Sally Wright has created an original niche in themed mystery fiction. Add to that some great writing, and I can only advise you to go out and read the entire series. You won't be disappointed.

Mystery Readers Journal: Around the World in a Magazine

Writing about my Bouchercon panel yesterday, I thought about all the issues of Mystery Readers Journal that were set in other countries. Mystery Readers Journal is a quarterly themed hardcopy magazine, and all reviews and articles focus on the special theme.

I especially enjoy the Author! Author! section of MRJ. Mystery authors write about themselves, their books, and why they chose the theme of the issue to incorporate into their novels. MRJ is like a convention in a magazine. The last issue, Irish Mysteries, showed many sides of Irish mystery writing from noir to cozy . We've also had issues on France, Italy (2 issues), Scandinavia, the Far East, Pacific Northwest, Oxford, Canada, New England and the South (2 issues). Coming up MRJ will have issues on San Francisco, Africa, and Los Angeles. All this in addition to themes such as Art Mysteries, Theatrical Mysteries, Sports Mysteries, History Mysteries, etc.

Mystery Readers Journal is in its 24th year. Subscribe to MRJ