Editor/Publisher Brandon Barrows opens Guilty
Crime Story Magazine: Issue 8, Spring 2023: The Detective Annual with his
story, “Too Late: A Sam Harrigan Story.” Private Investigator Sam Harrigan
hired a few hours earlier by Edith Lindell to protect her son, Scott Lindell.
She knew he was in trouble. Protection wasn’t what he did. And according to
mom, the cops wouldn’t help. Harrington needed the money as business has been
slow so he took the job and only promised to look into whether or not he was in
danger. The fact that Detective-Sergeant John Del Rio is at the guy’s house, as
are a number of police cars with flashing lights, indicates that he was. and
Harrigan was far too late.
Retired Homicide Detective Gene Zeller has made
it his mission to warn women involved with Del Hanlon about him. He knows
without a shadow of doubt that Anne Carstairs and Debra Sykes were murdered by
him shortly after each married him. In each case, Del Hanlon gained quite a lot
of money through the death. Zeller is sure that Vickie Benson is Hanlon’s next
target in “Taking the Hit” by Joseph S. Walker.
In “Jenga” by Robb White, a former cop, now a
private investigator, does not have a lot going on when sees a news report
regarding the anniversary of the disappearance of Maggie Clegg. It has been ten
years since she vanished from a local bar in the Atlanta area. She was studying
veterinary medicine at a local college. Three young men in the bar that night attended
the same college and were cleared in the weeks afterward. Her father marked the
anniversary of the disappearance of his daughter by committing suicide. Our
private investigator decides to get some answers. The plan is to find those
three guys, wherever they are now, and personally interview them.
How do you find a missing body first buried three
years ago? That is the question in “Magic Coffin” by Peter DiChellis. Ms. Jazmin
Romanya and a number of others at graveside witnessed her husband buried three
years ago. Viktor Romanya was a master illusionist before his death. Now, due
to the events in recent days, his grave has been opened. She does not know what
happened to his body and was the narrating private investigator to find him.
Easier said than done in a case of magic and misdirection.
A bullet in the knee several years ago left
Dwight Ashcroft with a permeant limp and a fifty percent disability. He had to
leave the police force and become a private investigator. Since he can’t shadow
people, he gets help on some cases by our narrator who does the necessary
walking and surveillance. Our narrator, Don, gets a wakeup call in “Queen of
Spades” by Steve Liskow as their latest case begins. Terrence Whitmore is the
head accountant for Beck and Baur, the biggest contractor around. Beck is fifty
percent sure that Whitmore is stealing money from the company and wants proof.
In the final story of the issue, Detective Tom
Keegan had a rough weekend in “Sausalito” by M.E. Proctor. When he walks into
the office Monday, his partner, Al “Matt” Matteotti, informs him that things
are about to get way worse. For the last ten days, every cop on the force has
been looking for little eight-year-old Melanie Hightower. It was thought to be
a ransom case as her father is very wealthy. Instead, her body has just been
found in this historical mystery set shortly after World War II and Keegan and
Matteotti have to work the case.
As always, Guilty Crime Story Magazine delivers tales
of crime and mystery where the good guys are not perfect, not even necessarily
good, and are doing the best they can to survive and live with the way things
are as opposed to the way they wish the world worked. Such is the case here in
this eighth issue. Just like in real life, the detectives don’t always get there
in time to save the people involved. They can get some sort of justice and they
do so in Guilty Crime Story Magazine: Issue 8, Spring 2023: The Detective
Annual.
The Amazon Associate image purchase box is not
working so please pick up your copy here.
According to Amazon, I picked this up in April
2023 by way of funds in my Amazon Associate account.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2024
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