Publications

The Self-Made Man

Fifth Runner Up, The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest

“What about that one?” Bonnie asked, pointing to the skull.

“Ah! You’re curious about the Smilodon. A cat with teeth like double-edged knives. This creature was a consummate predator, as I’m sure you can see. Go on, go on! Have a good look. If this animal were alive today, you wouldn’t be able to get this close.” He clucked his tongue and turned to the next case. A cabinet of bones — claws and horns, antlers and tusks — ran the full height of the room.

“There are a lot of dangerous animals in here,” Laurie said, frowning a little at the pointed, wicked claws. It was all too easy to imagine the rest of the animal — the fur, and the teeth, and the growl, and the roar.

Barometz looked affronted. “This, my dear, is a theater of memory itself! We merely seek to reflect the world as we see it. You look at these predators and see something dangerous. I see a creature following the script that nature has written for it. Just look at those teeth. It has no other choice but to hunt.”

Read the story in The Saturday Evening Post

Anthology available on Amazon

Woodpeckers

Published in Shotgun Honey Presents Volume 5: Thicker Than Water

She doesn’t pay it much attention when the kid comes in that morning, asking to speak to her, to report something he’d seen. Dermody had caught him once drawing graffiti on the side of a vacant mini-mart but let him go with a warning, and now she guesses that gives her an air of sympathy and consideration that she really wishes she didn’t have to humor.

Anthology available at Shotgun Honey Books

Also available on Amazon

All profits donated to benefit cancer research

Selected for the Honor Roll in The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024

Stranger

First Place Winner, Genre Category, 92nd Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition

The man dressed in blue told me to wait outside the store. Bits of broken glass were scattered across the sidewalk, what was left of the front window. A table pushed up against it stood empty. I could hear the whir of a standing fan through the smashed window, feel its breeze whenever it spun in my direction. The pawn shop was in an old building, and didn’t have central air.

“You need to move along, ma’am.” The man had come back outside, and waved dismissively at me. “This is a crime scene, and I need to clear the area.”

I turned to face him, careful of the glass. “But you just told me to wait right here…?” We stared at each other in mutual confusion for a moment. “Unless you didn’t.”  

Read the story in Writer’s Digest

Zarparan

Second Place Winner, Genre Category, 90th Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition

Published in Malice Domestic 18: Mystery Most Devious

Before I joined the National Food Crime Unit, there was a scandal in West Sussex about saffron. Somebody had been adding cheaper plant fibers into the mix and passing them off as the real thing. When all was said and done, the FSA seized almost a hundred kilos of it. I remember speculating, with not a small degree of awe, what that would look like. Just thinking about the fields of flowers, with their endless, amaranthine rows, could make my head spin. All of that land, for such a tiny thread. Something so small, and yet people went to so much trouble for it.

Anthology available at Wildside Press

Also available on Amazon

Redemption Blues

Honorable Mention, Genre Category, 91st Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition

Published in The Saturday Evening Post, May/June 2025

They planned for the day that the coach was set to travel through northwestern Nevada, coming down from Reno and skirting the edge of the Virginia mountain range. There were plenty of places along the trail where they could perch in the hills, able to watch the wagon’s approach without being seen themselves, and far enough away from either city where, by the time word spread of what they had done, the Concord gang would be only a memory in the Nevada valley. Wyatt planned, and he drank, and he helped Lonnie with his fast-draw, and he told the Marshall where to plan their ambush so that they could capture the outlaw who rode a black horse with a white star. The Marshall told him he was a good man, and he almost believed it.

Read the story in The Saturday Evening Post