Like most members of a certain generation, I can sing a verse or two of the Simon and Garfunkel song “Scarborough Fair/Canticle.” Even those who don’t remember an entire verse will be familiar with the line, “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” which is repeated no less than five times throughout the song, which in turn is based on the old English ballad, “Scarborough Fayre.” So a few weeks back as I was flipping through the guide on my television, checking the offerings on my PBS stations, I saw a listing for a show called Rosemary & Thyme. Fearing yet another British comedy I nearly passed it by, but then I noticed that it was squeezed in between Sherlock Holmes and Masterpiece Mystery. I decided it might be worth a look.

[How did it go?]

This year Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine celebrates the seventieth anniversary of its first issue, which included stories by such leading lights as Dashiell Hammett, Margery Allingham, and Cornell Woolrich, among others, plus a story by author-editor Ellery Queen, pseudonym of cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee.

On my fourteenth birthday, a favorite aunt gave me a one-year subscription.  Within a few issues, I became a life-long fan of short mystery fiction.

Over the decades, EQMM and its authors have stayed in tune with the inclinations of modern mystery readers, offering a wide assortment of stories each month. The current issue has a comic tale by Ulrike Rudolph translated from German, “Duck in the Pudding,” another that’s a murky story along the style of The Black Mask, entitled “Tomorrow’s Dead” by David Dean, and a tidy yarn from Lee Goldberg about Adrian Monk. (For a limited time, read “Mr. Monk and the Sunday Paper” as a highlighted excerpt.)

In keeping with the times, you can now also listen to EQMM’s podcasts.  Click the story title for one featuring Criminal Brief contributor and short crime author James Lincoln Warren assisting Mary Jane Maffini in reading her story “So Much in Common,” which won this year’s Agatha Award and, just recently, Canada’s Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Short Story. 

[But back in the day...]

Late last week, the Crime Writers of Canada hung honors proudly upon the winners of this year’s Arthur Ellis Awards, given in 6 categories to Canadians or Canadian citizens abroad, as well as the “Unhanged Arthur,” awarded to the best first crime novel by an unpublished author. 

Louise Penny, who’s having a positively monotonous winning season for crime awards, took home the Best Crime Novel prize for the wonderful Bury Your Dead. Avner Mandelman won Best First Crime Novel for The Debba.  Best French Crime Novel went to Jacques Côté for Dans les quartier des agités. Alice Kulper’s The Worst Thing She Ever Did won for Best Juvenile/Young Adult Crime Novel. Best Crime Nonfiction went to Stevie Cameron for On The Farm. Mary Jane Maffini won the Best Crime Short Story award for “So Much in Common,” appearing in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and the Best Unpublished First Crime Novel went to Jon Jeneroux for Better Off Dead.