Guilty Crime
Story Magazine: Issue 4, Spring 2022 is billed as The Detective Issue
and opens with “Poor Little Rich Man: A Sam Harrigan Story” by Editor Brandon
Barrows. P.I. Sam Harrigan is awakened in his office by somebody at his door.
That man was Mark Cole who as an actor. Now he is dead having made it his last
act on stage to appear at the door of his office. Why and who killed him are
two questions that private investigator Sam Harrigan intends to answer.
He used to be a
detective who did some things that crossed the line. Some of those things
pushed him out of the job. There is still time to atone for a thing he should
have handled long ago in “Badge” by Michael Grimala.
Solving the
puzzle was always the attraction for Dick which is why he left the police force
and opened his own agency. It is a one-person agency as he prefers working
alone to connect the dots. In “See The Signs” by Craig Terlson, he is looking
for a missing kid. Simon seems to be a bit young to be a runaway. The mom, Mrs.
Jackson, wants no police involvement. That is the first of several oddities
with this one.
Harry McLean has
had enough of Caleb as “Caleb’s Cannon” by M.E. Proctor begins. The pay for
information dance is familiar, but Harry has had enough. It has been a rough
few days in the heat of South-East Texas on a stakeout and now a new case is in
his lap due to a recent incident. Something is up with insurance agent Jerry Walden
and Caleb might have an answer or two if he just got on with it.
“Lucy’s Inferno”
by Robb T. White comes next where Lucy is sent out by the jerk boss, Elliot
Schwartzbach III, to a strip-mall in Northtown on Lake Erie. It burned and now
the owner is in a rush for insurance to pay up. Lucy is an investigator and is
very good at catching scammers, fraudsters, and the like. It isn’t the first
time Lucy has had to go to Northtown so this trip is not going to be fun for a
variety of reasons.
Just because the
dead person was homeless and found by a dumpster does not mean the person was
trash. Eddie Redmond certainly was not trash. He also was not a drug user so
the needle still in his arm means it was a murder. Joe Moncrief intends to make
sure everyone knows that fact and to catch the killer in “No One’s Trash” by
Luke Foster. This story brings the entertaining issue to a close.
The Detective
Issue
of Guilty Crime story: Issue 4, Spring 2022 is a solidly good
read. These stories are not light fluff. Instead, they have a whiff, and
sometimes a much stronger scent, of noir running through each one. Detectives,
with different styles and perceptions of what is right and wrong, are working in
each case in a pursuit of what they see as justice. A lot is packed into each
tale. No cardboard character cutouts need to apply. Well worth your time as are
the previous issues of this magazine.
The previous
issues and my reviews:
Guilty
Crime Story Magazine: Issue 1, Summer 2021 (July 2021)
Guilty
Crime Story Magazine: Issue 2, Fall 2021 (September
2021)
Guilty
Crime Story Magazine: Issue Three, Winter 2022 (January 2022)
My reading copy
was a purchase of the eBook earlier this month by way of funds in my Amazon
Associate account.
Kevin R. Tipple ©
2022
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