The May/June 2024 issue of EQMM shows off the creative drive of characters in many artistic realms—and reminds us that this type of passion can lead to crime. Doug Allyn’s Upper Peninsula contractor can’t resist the opportunity to take on a historic renovation, but he isn’t the only one interested in “Capone’s Castle.” “Where’s Dookie?” by Gregory Fallis involves a unique visual-arts practice, and “Bermuda Triangle” by Michael Bracken a priceless musical instrument. “Blood and Butter” by Tyler Fiecke hits the “hot” spot of the culinary arts, and once again Antonia Darcy’s crime-writing career gets her caught up in a mystery in R.T. Raichev’s “Blind Witness.”

Capone’s Castle
by Doug Allyn

“Slow down,” Puck said. “There’s something in the road.”

I backed off the gas a tad. The old-timer was right. A quarter-mile ahead, a whitetail doe was sprawled across my lane. Doornail dead. Her neck was twisted at an impossible angle, spindly legs snapped like twigs. A purplish smear stretched a full thirty feet behind her carcass. Whatever clipped her had dragged her a ways. Log hauler, maybe. An ugly way to die.  READ MORE

Quick Change
by Michael Kardos

1.
“James, I consider you a friend and a worthy companion,” Suzanna Mudd told me, an assessment that sounded, coming from her lips, less like praise and more like prelude to an indictment. Long ago, we had played marbles together in the dirt. For years, we walked the last three blocks to school together. In class, I was the only student from whom she deemed worthy of cheating. The feeling was reciprocal. Outside of school, we didn’t socialize, a fact that accounted for my perfect attendance. I dreaded graduation. READ MORE