In post-Katrina New Orleans, dying wishes can come true--with often unexpected results.

"Ah, the wild west, where the men are tough, the women are trouble, and the emeralds are cursed." THE JULIET is a novel that braids the history of a cursed emerald called The Juliet with the story of an ailing, retired cowboy actor who comes to Death Valley to search for her. Rigg Dexon, best known for his role as Holt Breck in the classic but controversial seventies Western, Gallows River, holes up for months in a shack known as the Mystery House, until he is driven out of seclusion by the record breaking wildflower bloom of March 2005 that draws swarms of tourists to the desert. After an intense encounter with an ardent fan named Willie Judy at a local bar, Rigg impulsively signs over the deed for the Mystery House to her in a gesture straight out of one of his corny films. But Willie, a rootless, unlucky young woman from a family of short-lived dreamers, takes it as a sign: Dexon wants her to find the Juliet, now that he's too frail to continue his search. What Willie doesn't know is that Dexon is giving away everything that's precious to him, following the advice of Holt Breck: leave like you ain't coming back. When Dexon's gift turns out to be the scene of a crime that implicates Willie in drug trafficking, she tries to cover it up, only to be drawn into the chaotic wake of The Juliet. Interspersed with the story set in 2005 are episodes from The Juliet's twisted history as the emerald changes hands over the span of a century, leaving a wake of murder, theft, and madness until she is seemingly lost in the 50s. However, when a 1970s cereal company promises that the prize inside the box is a fragment of a treasure map that might lead to The Juliet's whereabouts, her legend is re-ignited, helped in no small part by the cereal's spokesman, none other than Rigg Dexon.

Welcome back to New Royal, Ohio, where the last descendent of its founding family, ninety-seven-year-old Viola Horup, has been bludgeoned to death in her mansion on an icy December night, leaving behind boxes of treasure and garbage.

Jeaneane Lewis is a disturbed graduate student in a crime writing program who makes a grisly discovery: in the heart of the college/prison town of New Royal, Ohio, a military widow and her two small children lay dead in a frigid garden pond, watched over by a shivering, ex-cadaver dog named Daddy. The murders go unsolved, but Lewis manages to publish a vivid account of her experience before she falls prey to years of writer's block and drug addiction that make her a terrible student but an acceptable assistant to the most unpopular professor in the program, Elizabeth Murgatroyd. Just before Lewis is kicked out of NRU, Murgatroyd's one-night stand with a stranger yields a shocking revelation--not only is he the killer, but Lewis' story is a complete fabrication. Though shaken by the encounter, Murgatroyd means to keep the killer's secret until she can write an article of her own. With the help of an ex-con named Crocus, the Professor takes a closer look at the murders that have come to define New Royal, though first she must explore the twists and turns of Lewis' grim past.

Sometimes the difference between trash and treasure is a matter of life and death Welcome back to New Royal, Ohio, where the last descendent of its founding family, ninety-seven-year-old Viola Horup, has been bludgeoned to death in her mansion on an icy December night, leaving behind boxes of treasure and garbage. Detective Steve Rasmussen isn't a stupid man, but he likes simple solutions, meaning he's destined to butt heads with Crocus Rowe, a punk ex-con alumna of the University's Crime Writing Program, who doesn't believe that Viola's murder is just a "robbery-gone-wrong." Crocus' theory is proven correct in the most gruesome way possible when she discovers the broken body of an estate agent in Viola's cellar. Against the backdrop of a community obsessed with a mysterious game involving the sudden appearance of words and phrases scattered all over town, Crocus seeks answers in the dark history of New Royal where all roads lead to Crybaby Lane. New Royal is the place to be for lovers of great crime and mysteries...

Turn the Living into CorpsesI am the dirt. I am the grave. I don't meditate nor drink. I don't write manifestos. I turn people into bodies. So begins the confession of a boogeyman that no one believes in. As he settles into the abandoned Magic River Café, Blue Billy doesn't care that it has deteriorated into an abandoned, filth-ridden shack on the banks of a rancid backwater. This is his home, now. Or it could be, if it weren't for three women out to prove that he is real. Crocus Rowe is a parolee with anger issues, who finds herself on the run after she assaults a professor over his unspeakable crimes. When the professor winds up in a refrigerator submerged in the ironically named Magic River, things look bad for Crocus, whose first call is to Alma Bell, a memoirist and much-maligned Blue Billy "expert" from New Royal University's notorious Crime Writing Program. Haunted by the unsolved 1992 murder of her best friend, Alma will go to any lengths to prove that Blue Billy is responsible. And then there's Tara Rowe, Crocus's damaged cousin. As one of Blue Billy's rare survivors, she's endured years of experimental therapy and exploitation to become the person she is today: Blue Billy's stalker. Children still whisper "Blue Billy" around the campfire, but if Crocus, Alma, and Tara can uncover the truth behind New Royal's darkest mystery, they may just put an end to the legend, once and for all.

In this issue... Girls rule in this issue of Mystery Weekly Magazine. In our feature story, "The Shooting Gallery" by Clifford Royal Johns, a petty thief who stole from a mobster is threatened by a leggy blonde to pay it back, or die trying. Truth mirrors fiction in Mark Steven Long's clever offering, "The Boy Who Shouldn't Have Died", about a man irresistibly compelled to write. In "The Greensgate Ghost" by A.A. Azariah-Kribbs, murder will not lie easy in local psychic Ellen Cobble's knot of lies, secrets, and the supernatural. A recovering coke queen finds her voice in "The Skinny Girl" by Michael Guillebeau. A rookie cop investigates mysterious chicken slayings and trips up a cunning killer in Agnes Hooper's "Murder Most Fowl". Sometimes she's the only one standing between you and the bad guys: "A Good Girl With A Hatchet" by Laura Ellen Scott. Plus, can you find the clues pointing to self-defense or murder in this month's You- Solve-It mystery? The best in Short Mystery Fiction Mystery Weekly is a monthly mystery magazine that presents crime and mystery short stories by some of the world's best established and emerging mystery writers. The original stories selected for each issue include noir, cozy, hardboiled, locked room, comic, and historical mysteries--plus occasional genre-busting stories that lean toward speculative or literary fiction. However you classify them, all of our stories feature strong writing and unsurpassed entertainment value.