Past Crime

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Laws change from culture to culture, decade to decade. Strange laws make criminals of ordinary citizens. Like the Massachusetts woman whose brother asks her for help, slave hunters at his heels. Or the Chinese immigrant who finds himself in the middle of a crooked game of Fan Tan. Or the Native American detective searching New York’s Stonewall Bar for a ratfink on the night of a world-changing riot. These stories and more prove that once again, Fiction River’s crime volumes have, in the words of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, “high quality throughout.”

“Meeting the exceptional quality of previous anthologies, this collection contains excellent past crimes short stories.”
— Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine on Fiction River: Past Crime

“Fiction River: Crime edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch leads off with strong new tales by three familiar EQMM contributors: Doug Allyn with a gangster whodunnit, Steve Hockensmith with a con game story, and Brendan DuBois with a fresh variation on the old brothers-who-took-different-paths ploy. A sampling of other contents, including experimental short-shorts by Melissa Yi and M. Elizabeth Castle and a clever turn on the greedy-relatives-want-inheritance by Kate Wilhelm, suggest high quality throughout."
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine on Fiction River Special Edition: Crime

“Stolen in Passing” by Dory Crowe
“New World Gambles” by Leah Cutter
“The Bank Teller” by Jamie McNabb
“An Education for Thursday” by Dean Wesley Smith
“The Curious Case of the Ha’Penny Detective” by Lee Allred
“The Horns of Hathor” by Richard Quarry
“Impressions” by Lisa Silverthorne
“The Raiders” by Cat Rambo
“The Monster in Our Midst” by Kris Nelscott
“Blood and Lightning on the Newport Highway” by Elizabeth Castle
“Deathmobile” by Michele Lang
“The Stonewall Rat” by JC Andrijeski