Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine July/August 1997

      Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, July/August 1997. Borrowed from WCESS. Demonstrates that the short story is the mystery genre’s best format: just long enough to create barely believable characters and a plausible plot, but compressed enough for an easily visible shape of the story. Most of the stories are sentimental, a few have the Hitchcockian twist of the crook inadvertently double-crossing himself (or herself) through excessive ingenuity, and a couple work on every level.
     Memories (Wanda Jones) plays a nice variation on Southern Gothic: a plain girl’s nasty older brother gets his just deserts in a psychologically satisfying way. Stop, Thief! (Dan Sontup) works the double-cross motif expertly: honest citizen wants to use petty crook in an insurance scam and set him up as the fall guy, but makes the common error of thinking crooks are dumber than honest citizens. Streetwise (J. A Paul) believably mixes a smart kid, school bullies, an observant cop, and a martial arts coach into a well-paced yarn. Most of the stories are competently written (or edited). A few are a bit precious in style or concept, but I guess the magazine has to cater to a wide range of tastes. ** to *** (2001)