Toad Hall Bookstore

Chilling tales from New England’s talented mystery writers

Windchill: Crime Stories by New England Writers

Edited by Skye Alexander, Kate Flora, and Susan Oleksiw. Level Best Books, Prides Crossing, Massachusetts, 01965, http://www.levelbestbooks.com/. 258 pages.

“Windchill,” the third anthology of mystery stories published by Level Best Books of Massachusetts, delivers every bit of the danger and intrigue it connotes. The 22 stories of mystery and intrigue featured here subject us to New England’s edgiest extremes. Murder by hypothermia? Deadly hot and sour soup? Rogue loggers bent on theft and worse? Clairvoyance so powerful it can cut through a sewer’s swill? The mango from hell? These stories, if not all set in New England, are imagined by New England writers who, like Nathaniel Hawthorne or Edith Wharton, are expert at articulating the dark side.

It’s not so easy to define and resolve a mystery in just three or four thousand words. “Windchill’s” stories do it very well, and, as a result, are remarkably satisfying. All three of the anthology’s editors have produced stories with surprising twists and unexpected endings. “What He Would Have Known” by Susan Oleksiw is a masterpiece of plotting. If only the arrogant American professor had read his student’s doctoral dissertation before coming to southern India. Oleksiw’s Anita Ray stories are witty, ironic, and wise. Kate Flora’s “Role Model” is excellent storytelling. You don’t even realize a mystery is being conjured up until the solution is at hand. And, as always, Skye Alexander’s short story is an entertaining mix of great writing, amusing observation, and surprise. “Midnight at the 11^th Hour Cowboy Bar” digs up trouble in the Lone Star State when her reporter/sleuth questions the death of one of Easy, Texas’s, most disliked characters. The editors all have mystery novels to their credit; Oleksiw’s new Joe Silva mystery, “A Murderous Innocence,” will be available this March.

Margaret Press’s “Feral” manages, in just 10 short pages, to create and solve a murder at the same time that it creates a clever link between a stray cat and a cad. Like many of the stories here, the writing is lively and full of fun. “The Spare,” by Woody Hanstein, veers to the dark side, however, when we least expect it. We are trapped in the car along with a prisoner in transport as Tiny, the retired cop who’s responsible for bringing the rapist to jail, babbles on and on. When we realize that the prisoner is in the back seat sobbing, we expect it’s because he’s being tortured by the idiotic monologue coming from the front seat. But amid all that mindless drivel, alert readers might detect important clues to the grisly outcome.

Mystery novel and short story writer Brendan DuBois’s award-winning story “The Forever Reunion” kicks off this collection. It’s one of the quieter pieces, commencing on a gray, late fall New Hampshire day in a cemetery. There, a father leads his wayward son to a distant gravesite. He is in desperate hope of a course correction for the boy. Jonathan, the father, wants to spare his son the fate that befell his tormented Uncle Darryl. DuBois, another of the skilled writers featured in this book, does a wonderful job evoking a sense of family.

This collection can be purchased by writing to any of the addresses above, or on Amazon.com. “Windchill” is the third in the series that also includes “Undertow” and “Riptide.”

Rae Francoeur is a writer, editor.