The Money Mattress by Jude Roy is an enjoyable read. A heist is planned by an ex-con, a dimwit blonde, and her less than competent boyfriend. I just knew everything was destined to go to hell in a hand-basket. The author surprised me with this clever tale.

​You can read this, and many other fine stories, on the Mystery Weekly Magazine website.

I finished reading the September/October 2018 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Rats, by Tom Savage, starred part-time school teacher Alice Wilson. When a Russian mob boss's nephew moves into her apartment building, the former safe haven becomes a dangerous and depressing place to live. Alice and her retired trapeze artist neighbor are determined to win their peace of mind back from the crude and violent thugs. Anyone who has had unpleasant neighbors move in will appreciate the drastic measures Alice and Marco take.

Two stories are set in Germany, and it is interesting how differently the authors approach the similar settings. Buried Past by Mark Thielman straddles two time periods: WWII and present day. Former lovers meet for coffee. While their story unfolds, another tale is told of un-exploded ordinance peppering the German countryside. I was quite a way into the story before I started catching the connection of the historical story to the modern. Nicely done. In an entirely different era, but still in Germany, Matthew Wilson sets his story The Cook Off on a US Army base in 1977. This is pre-unification, with East German defectors seeking asylum in Western Germany. But that's not the core of this story. Sergeant Jefferson faces racial prejudice from fellow soldiers when he dates a white German woman. The title of this story has nothing to do with food, by the way. With no support from superior officers, the sergeant must find a way to stop a group of rednecks from beating up black soldiers. And prevent his own murder.

Lots of good reading this week!

My mother and sister joined me Sunday at Glen Eyrie Castle. I have been here several times over the years, but this was the first time I saw bighorn sheep on the grounds. This was quite a treat for my sister from Texas. We decided it was a nice gift for my mother's 85th birthday. We enjoyed a Victorian-style tea in luxurious surroundings.

Murder on Lake Okeechobee by Gary Hoffman is a fun mystery. A body, a fishing boat, and an old grudge are pieces to this puzzle. Detective Brown investigates clues and interviews suspects in a short story you can read here.

In The Wildest One by Brendan DuBois, former child actor Harry Cox finds it difficult to capitalize on his once famous past. His impatient wife, part-time special police officer for their small New Hampshire town, pushes him to attend celebrity reunion events. All Harry wants is to putter around his bakery, which is sliding into the red. The past won't let Harry go, from clueless fans to former co-stars. He's heading straight toward losing everything as the story opens.   

Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine publishes several series short stories with recurring characters.

Counterpoint, by John H. Dirckx, features Detective Sergeant Fritz Dollinger, Lieutenant Auburn, and several police department personnel familiar to fans of the series. In this story, two neighbors - lawyer Maynard Millikin and doctor Quentin Nieborg - have a longstanding feud over property boundaries, outbuildings, fallen fruit, and noise. Their disagreements have escalated to a ridiculous crescendo, until they both become suspects in the murder of a handyman.

Scrap Drive - A Four Horsemen Story by Loren D. Estleman is another recurring series featuring four police officers. "The squad, colloquially known as the Four Horsemen, affected matching gray fedoras and black topcoats in order to avoid blackjacking one another by mistake in riot situations." At a WWII scrap drive in a public park, a gangster's body rolls off the pile of toasters, iron stoves, bowling trophies, and galvanized pails. The Four Horseman must track down the killer. What they discover is quite a surprise. 

This year I had less gardening space than in previous years, focusing almost exclusively on container gardening on my deck. Even so, I had an explosion of late summer produce. I spent more time than typical this year putting up vegetables. For those who don't know the term "putting up" in this context, it refers to preserving food for use in the winter and early spring, before new crops are available. 

First I prepared Swiss Chard for freezing. I cleaned and chopped the leaves and stems, then blanched them for 2 minutes in boiling water. I measured out quantities I thought I'd want for meals later into freezer bags. Done!

I have a beautiful crop of jalapenos that's still producing. I decided to get the canning equipment out one more time to preserve this bounty. I just can't eat that many fresh jalapenos at a time. I made baked jalapenos stuffed with cheddar cheese a couple weeks ago, and my husband and I nearly burst into flame. These are some hot peppers!

Canning is the best option. I chose quarter pint canning jars, and a few half pints. Small, usable quantities. Our elder daughter orchestrated the fruit canning and freezing a few weeks back. I decided to go it alone this time.

The recipe warned to wear rubber gloves to avoid getting burned by the capsaicin - the substance in the peppers that makes it hot. I've made the mistake of cutting up jalapenos and then touching my lips. It burns for hours. 

Preparing produce for canning takes the lion's share of time. You want some uniformity. I threw in bits of small sweet red peppers for added color, along with a couple red jalapenos. 

Next comes cleaning your equipment. It's critical to be sanitary. Those jars might sit in your cupboard for a year and a half. Timing sanitizing the jars and lids, boiling the vinegar, and packing the hot jars with jalapenos is a bit tricky. Finally, they go in the canning bath, a huge pot of boiling water.

After a nervous several minutes (lots of extra minutes at high altitude), I pulled the jars from the water bath and waited.

POP! The first lid sealed. POP POP POP! More lids sealed. That popping is the sound of success. The rubber lined lid has sealed to the glass jar, and will now be safe to place on a cupboard shelf for many months.

​My stint as Pioneer Woman is over for the season. I'll put my canning equipment away for another year. Well, unless my bumper crop of tomatoes needs to be canned.....

Summer has been busy, but Thursday night I made time to drive to Denver for a gathering of the Rocky Mountain Mystery Writers of America. This professional writing group hosts speakers on topics of interest to mystery and crime fiction authors. This month's program featured Sgt. Dean Christopherson from the Denver Police Department.

Sgt. Christopherson brought items from the Denver Police Museum. He spoke about how police officers were at a disadvantage in the early days of American history, hobbled by everything from rules about how to carry their firearms to the inadequacy of small caliber pistols against criminals who possessed military firearms.

​He became interested in gathering historical information and artifacts related to police officers, which led to founding the museum. Among the early hats, handcuffs, radio, badges, and pistol he brought to show us, there was also Harry Callahan's badge from the Clint Eastwood movie Dirty Harry. Sgt. Christopherson spoke about the important role movies have had in accurately portraying police work.

​It was an interesting evening, and well worth the drive. More photos below.

Until September 22, it is still summer. I am disappointed in people who hasten the seasons along. It’s bad enough the stores start selling the accouterments for holidays two or three months off. I was not upset, though, when my September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine arrived in late August.

The first story is The Chinese Box, by R. T. Lawton. This is a welcome addition to the series starring the unnamed Chinese son of an opium warlord. Our hero is a good guy making the most of a bad situation. When his mother died, he had to leave education and big city life to join his father’s business. He and his elder half-brother Kang engage in an ongoing battle to inherit the title of warlord from their father one day. One of my favorite characters is the man only called “my old Mon scout.” All during a trip to transport raw opium to factories for processing, our hero attempts to open a puzzle box. Each brother has been gifted a box by their father. Opening the box is clearly a test. But first priority is escaping bandits and the armies of rival warlords while traveling through the Thai jungle. Learn more about the story in Lawton’s article on Sleuth Sayers.

I enjoyed Casting Call, by James Lincoln Warren. This story read like an old episode of the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents, although it is set in contemporary times. It had a very cinematic feel, which was appropriate to the Hollywood setting and the casting of a part for a minor movie.

Another story I enjoyed in this issue was Unity Con by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. This is the second story I have read in AHMM starring Spade, the pseudonym for a guy much like those you find at gaming and s/f conventions, who doubles as a private eye. Rusch addresses the recent turmoil in the world of science fiction as fans seek to either escalate political correctness to a painful pitch, or maintain the status quo. When a group of writers decides to hold a convention demonstrating inclusiveness, Spade notes they are “forgetting, or perhaps never realizing, that fandom had always welcomed everyone. From the differently abled to people of color, fandom has always kept its doors open.” Spade investigates a murder against this backdrop. If you have ever attended a s/f convention, or are a member of fandom, you’ll feel at home in Rusch’s story.

To learn more about the stories in AHMM, and about mystery fiction in general, check out editor Linda Landrigan’s blog, Trace Evidence.

Before heading to the airport on a business trip, I had the foresight to grab a couple back issues of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. During the flights, and while in my hotel room, I finished reading the May/June and July/August issues.

Starting with May/June, I read Shopping for Fun and Profit by Neil Schofield. Mrs. Minchin, recently widowed, rants about how much she hates supermarkets. She describes shoppers as “Poor benighted things, shopping in an Inner Circle of Hell, guided by spirit voices.” I was several pages in, wondering if there was a point to the story, but enjoying the humor. Lines like “I try to do my little bit of shopping when there are no mothers about with their countless screaming ankle-biters, when the cereals section becomes the true Home of British Horror,” kept me going. There is a point to the story, and as is fitting with AHMM, it does involve a crime. I laughed out loud on the airplane, safe in the knowledge that my fellow passengers wore ear buds and were focused on the screens of their smart phones.

In One-Day Pass, by B. K. Stevens, we learn there is paperwork in the afterlife. “’With that, and with all the orientation sessions and getting-to-know-you games, they keep you pretty busy.’” A private investigator’s deceased partner comes back from the dead on a one-day pass. He is not seeking revenge for his own murder, which puzzles the living PI. The dead PI was a hard-drinking womanizer, the stereotype of the fictional PI. His living partner has allowed his wife to decorate the office with plants, which rather horrifies the dead PI. This is a terrific story that kept me guessing until the end.

​The July/August AHMM issue contained plenty of entertainment for my travels. Not My Circus. . . by Josh Pachter is a very short story. Jeffrey and Sally’s marriage of four years has ground to an unsatisfying emotional end. If he divorces her, the townhouse mortgage is in her name, and he has no hope of enjoying his current lifestyle on his auto mechanic income. The title, half of an old Polish saying from Jeffrey’s grandfather, places a recurring role in the story.

The cover story of the July/August issue is The Black Drop of Venus, by Mark Thielman. Also winner of the Black Orchid Novella Award, this historical mystery is set on the HMS Endeavour with Captain James Cook. When a botanist is murdered on board, scientist Joseph Banks is ordered by the captain to solve the mystery before he will be allowed to go ashore on Tahiti to collect plant and animal samples. Banks gathers clues and interviews shipmates reluctant to cooperate.
​
I was grateful to have great reading material on my trip. Business travel can be tedious, but the miles flew by with my copies of AHMM firmly in hand.

There's not enough summer in the Colorado Rockies. I want to linger in the remaining warm days, taking advantage of weather that permits activities we'll miss this winter. We spent a few nights star gazing, and a few mornings sipping tea, on our deck. I have begun harvesting the vegetables that I planted months ago. My husband has his bathhouse on our mountain property halfway completed. What else is on our summer to-do list? Hiking!

One weekend, friends invited us to go hiking. When we arrived, they opened a map to Mount Huron.

Colorado has 53 fourteeners - mountains with an elevation above 14,000 feet. My husband and I have climbed several, but that was a few years ago. When our friends unfurled the map, and we realized the hike they proposed, we both considered taking a less challenging hike to a lake.

Caught up in the youthful enthusiasm of the young adults present, and Donna's determination to summit her first 14er, we decided to hike to tree line.

Timberline, or tree line, is the elevation where trees no longer grow. In Colorado, that is around 11,000 - 12,000 feet. That's a respectable height to climb to on steep trails and in the oxygen thin air. 

​We reached the boulder field that defined tree line on Mount Huron. 

After resting near a small mountain lake, we had three options. Continue on, wait at tree line for our friends to return from the summit, or return to camp. 

​My husband opted to wait at tree line. I continued to the summit. Below are photos of the view from the top.

 I recently finished reading the rest of the short stories in the generous Noir at the Salad Bar anthology. As William Cowper stated in a poem back in 1785, "Variety is the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor." This anthology is perfectly seasoned.

Antipastadead by Lorraine Sharma Nelson is a traditional locked room mystery. Or nearly locked. The suspects are women of privilege who have their retreat at an English estate shattered by murder. The detectives leave each evening while the women remain at the estate. Set in 1970, the story has an added layer of interest as Detective Chief Inspector Molly "Mo" Marbury struggles to prove herself as a female detective. I enjoyed trying to puzzle out the clues to reach a solution before the big reveal at the end.

Many of the stories in this anthology follow the pattern of the traditional mystery, each taking different tactics and engaging different storytelling styles to reach that end. Others are a departure from what I would expect in a mystery anthology.

Beef Stew by E L Johnson is a mystery wrapped inside a fantasy tale. Ogblud the Ogre doesn't like the taste of human, and in fact has never killed one of the small two-legged pink creatures. He secretly takes cooking lessons from the humans. When he tries to introduce his family to the delights of beef stew, he learns why he is so different from his proper human-eating brothers.

A Murder of Crows by Mara Buck opens with John, who doesn't enjoy butchering crows for a pie. As a cook in a specialty game restaurant, he goes along with his orders. There is a murder mystery at the center of this tale, wrapped inside a crust of horror.

There is great variety in how the anthology authors deal with the theme of food. For some, a restaurant or other dining service is the setting. For others, food is involved with the murder. The next two stories contrast feast and famine.

Fed Up by Louise Taylor set me up with an expectation for a predictable ending, then turned the tables on me. Mindy marries Daryl for his money. They have more in common than expected, as both come from impoverished childhoods. Neither is a particularly likable person, but I found myself rooting for Daryl because Mindy was such a heartless witch. She sets about killing her husband by satisfying his gluttonous appetite. Food descriptions fill this story. The twists and turns began early. The ending was a delight.

Playing Games by Elaine Togneri presents the opposite approach to the theme. Mai is an unwilling immigrant, abducted from Vietnam to work in a Chinese restaurant on the West Coast. She starves herself to stay skinny in order to avoid being sent to a whorehouse. One bleak night, the doors to the laborers' dormitory burst open, and she's hustled away. This is an interesting tale with a satisfying layer of complexity.

Noir at the Salad Bar is packed with variety, containing thirty short stories. There is certain to be a tale to please every mystery reader.  

After many interruptions this summer, I plan to get back in the saddle with Thursday short story reviews.

One of the delays was completing a novel by deadline. I'm pleased to announce my second Castleton Manor Library book has been accepted. It will be published in 2019.