Carla Coupe – Larque Press | The Digest Enthusiast

News November 21, 2019

Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 5

Contents Page
John Gregory Betancourt: From the Cat’s Perch
Michael Bracken “The Show Must Go On”
Dara Carr “Emily and Elodie”
Tracy Falenwolfe “Partners in Crime”
John M. Floyd “Rhonda and Clyde”
Charlie Hughes “The Idea”
Janice Law “The Bodyguard”
Dennis Palumbo “Trigger Warning”
Keith Snyder “Blue Skies”
Elizabeth Zelvin “A Unicorn in the Harem”
Gil Brewer “Don’t Do That” (Classic Reprint)

Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 5 (Vol. 2 No. 1) (Nov. 2019)
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Editors: John Gregory Betancourt, Carla Coupe, Michael Bracken
Production Team: Sam Cooper, Steve Coupe, Shawn Garrett, Yamini Manikoth
Cover: Uncredited
6” x 9” 148 pages
Print $12.00 Kindle (coming soon)
Black Cat Mystery website

Uncategorized August 2, 2019

BCMM1: Summary

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

“The ABCs of Murder,” a humorous poem by Josh Pachter, fills out the back cover. Oddly, it’s run landscape; I suppose to maximize the type size.

Black Cat Mystery Magazine is a welcome new arrival for fans of crime fiction magazines. Its content fulfills its promise of something for all mystery readers—hardboiled, cozy, noir, crime, private eye, suspense, and thriller. Each story is a satisfying example of its sub-genre. My favorites were those by Michael Bracken, Kaye George, and Fletcher Flora; but I lean toward the dark side. If you enjoy the full range of crime fiction, you’ll love the variety here. And frankly, variety is what a great anthology is all about.

Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Editors: John Gregory Betancourt and Carla Coupe
Cover: Fotolia
6” x 9” 150 pages
POD $12.00, Kindle $3.99

Reviews July 21, 2019

BCMM No. 1’s Classic Reprint

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

“Beside a Flowering Wall” by Fletcher Flora is reprinted from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine April 1968. A spinster is visited by the lost love of her life. “The wonder was that he had [once] loved her, for she had been a plain girl, as she was a plain woman, with an odd faded look as if she had been laundered too many times in boiling water.” The crime here was the loss of what might have been, until the opportunity to erase it forever arose.

Reviews June 23, 2019

James Holding’s Leroy King

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

Together, Martin Leroy and King Danforth make up the fictitious mystery writer “Leroy King,” the creation of real-life writer James Holding (1907–1997). A concept perfect for its original run of ten stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Their third outing, “The Italian Tile Mystery,” reprinted here, originally saw print in EQMM Sept. 1961.

The mystery is a puzzle, and the writing partners and their wives sleuth out its solution in this enjoyable puzzle procedural. The editor’s notes reveal a forthcoming complete collection of Leroy King stories from Crippen & Landru—The Zanzibar Shirt Mystery.

Reviews June 9, 2019

Kaye George’s Flirty Flamingo

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

The Flirty Flamingo is a strip club where an ex-cop named Fin often stations himself at the end of the bar. “Usually he let Joe, the barkeep, handle the rough customers and was only there for unofficial backup.” But when new girl Jodie Vive shares her story, Fin finds himself mangled up in high-profile politics and murder. “Flight to the Flirty Flamingo” by Kaye George is smart, tart, and fleet.

Reviews May 29, 2019

Michael Bracken’s Dixie Quickies

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

A southwestern no-tell motel with hourly rates is the scene of the crime in “Dixie Quickies” by Michael Bracken. Bodies are bad for business, so when Maria, one of several illegal immigrants who keep the sheets fresh, gives night manager Tiny Campella the news, he takes over the clean-up duties without bothering local authorities. Of course, that’s just foreplay for the action to come. Bracken’s mini-bio proclaims he’s the author of over 1200 short stories, and his impressive pedigree shows throughout this sterling example of his dandy work.

Reviews May 18, 2019

Jack Halliday’s Don’t Bank on It

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

A PI decides an unforgettable bank teller is better left forgotten in Jack Halliday’s “Don’t Bank on It.” Trouble is, she’s a person of interest in more ways than one. Nice set-up, but at just three pages, the payoff is more plot point than climax.

Reviews April 25, 2019

John M. Floyd’s Rooster Creek

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

“Rooster Creek” by John M. Floyd is a nicely constructed yarn set somewhere in a rural past. Katie Harrison can’t resist a final look at her childhood farmhouse as she’s passing through. Bad idea. There’s a reason the new owners conduct their maniacal mischief in the middle of nowhere.
In her first encounter with the farmhouse matron, Katie asks:

“I thought you were Mrs. Carter. You’re not?”
“I am. But Mrs. Carter doesn’t care for questions,” the woman said stiffly, “unless she’s the one asking them.”

That dubious exchange should’ve sent Katie packing, but she unwisely digs deeper into Mr. and Mrs. Carter’s weird ways until she reaches the end of her rope.

Uncategorized April 12, 2019

Dan Andriacco’s Murder at Madame Tussaud’s

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

Dan Andriacco’s passion for Holmes and Watson is evident in “Murder at Madame Tussaud’s,” where Professor Carlo Stuarti employs his remarkable powers of observation to sleuth out everything Inspector Catchpool of the Yard overlooks or misinterprets. Stuarti, dubbed the “Count of Conjuring” by his PR man Jack Barker, is a prestidigitator by trade, but Barker does his best to immerse the magician in headline-grabbing crime solving for the halo effect on the Professor’s stage show

Uncategorized April 6, 2019

Meg Opperman’s Pie to Die For

Excerpt from the review of Black Cat Mystery Magazine No. 1 from The Digest Enthusiast No. 7:

Annie is not the happily married newlywed she appears to be in Meg Opperman’s “A Pie to Die For.” Just a few months into her marriage a phone call from Benedict triggers an itch.

“My breath caught. My insides tingled. I could feel the heat stealing its way up my neck toward my cheeks.”

Annie struggles for an excuse to sneak away the night before her mother-in-law is due for Thanks- giving dinner. It’s no surprise she prefers action over approval, but Annie is far from predictable. Op- perman’s stories have appeared in EQMM, Wildside’s Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, and anthologies. Her story “Twilight Ladies” won the Derringer Award for best short story in 2015.