I Just Subscribed to...

... Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. It's not that I didn't pick it up before,; I did, especially when the magazine would feature stories by this dame, this young punk, and this wise guy. But it was always an impulse newsstand purchase; never a commitment. That all changed with the new (January 2008) issue, which features "The Return of Black Mask." As explained in a short opening essay in the front of the mag, EQMM is bringing back their long-running "Black Mask" department, and will feature a classic reprint from the magazine where hardboiled writing was born along with a new story in the same vein:

Just as the original Black Mask Magazine was hard-hitting, readers of our news series should expect the tales contained under this banner to be edgy, and sometimes more violent and harsher in language than other EQMM stories.

Um, sold.

And if the first two stories (Dashiell Hammett's "Bodies Piled Up" and Chuck Hogan's "Two Thousand Volts") are any indication, this will be the best $14.96 I've spent in a long time.

You know, with this, and the return of Plots With Guns, as well as this new thing John Rickards is cooking up... it's shaping up to be a very, very good time for the short mystery/crime story.