Lonely Detective, Volume II
Table of Contents
1. "The Lonely Detective Drinks with a Corpse in the Car" — The Lonely Detective spends an afternoon drinking with a man who has a corpse in his car, and while they discuss where to dump the body, the Lonely Detective solves a two-year-old murder as well as determining who killed the corpse in the trunk.
2. "The Lonely, Camera-Shy Detective Solves the TV Cops Murder" — While shepherding a TV crew filming a Cops reality show, the Lonely Detective directs a politically correct police team to a domestic disturbance
in a home and watches a simple domestic crime devolve into a chaotic scene with murder, drugs, child abuse, and knifings.
3. "The Lonely Insensitive Detective Solves the Televised Harlem Indian Ax Murder" — The Lonely Detective is chastised and instructed by his partner, a sensitive detective, about real love, minorities' sensibilities, and sacred burial sites while solving the Harlem Indian Ax Murder.
4. "The Lonely Rookie Detective Endures the Numbers and Meaning of the Tottenville Murder" — Ed McCoppin begins his career as a uniformed officer where he fights through his superior's numbers and meanings, slogs through the concerns of business partners, and wades through a widow’s tissues, tears, coffee, a toy gun, and donuts to solve her husband’s murder.
"Dummy’s Murder Between Hands" and Other Mystery Short Stories
Table of Contents
1. "Dummy’s Murder Between Hands" — Winner of WorldWide Writer’s Contest and published in Writers’ Forum — An evening’s bridge game, amid exotic coffees and cakes, is interrupted by a dummy’s murder by one of the other dummies. A wife’s tedious play of five clubs gives the murderer time to stab his victim, who inconsiderately bleeds to death on the library’s expensive Persian rug.
2. "Flightless Geese Murder" — Published in PI Magazine — A cynical investigator, hired to find Bobby
and Bernice, two very mean geese, probes into the realm of land development and pompous landowners, only to find the geese dead, hung around their dead owner’s neck.
3. "Finder of the Elvis Hankie" — Here is a new type of detective, not a finder of missing people but a finder of
missing important or sentimental objects. In this latest case the finder becomes involved in the world of unscrupulous collectors and dealers of Elvis collectibles, where thieves, rivalry and big money run like a vein of
false gold through everything, touching everyone.
4. "My Obit Habit Murder" — Published in New Mystery Magazine, International Issue and winner of the
Blaggard Award — A college professor, while sitting comfortably in his easy chair munching Oreos and reading
the obituary of the accidental death of a retired banker, deduces from twelve hundred miles away that the retired
banker was murdered in an abandoned boarding house, and names the murderer. He reveals who did it right after
disclosing why a failed bookseller was buried with too much haste.
5. "Judge Judy Murder" — On national TV, Judge Judy, while trying to appear more motherly and sympathetic to her audience, suddenly becomes involved in drugs, murder and mayhem as angry parties reveal more than they realized and more than the astonished Judy expected.
6. "Floating Ace of Clubs and Sinking Canoe Murder" — Published in Story One — An investigator vacationing at the Birdsong Dude Ranch and Fishing Barn meets up with a frightened man, his suspicious, cheap wife, a big beautiful blond promising everything and delivering only a bruised butt, ranch hands who act like
guests, a nasty twelve year old, and other assorted characters. The result is a man drowning in broad daylight in the middle of a calm lake with everyone watching. The ace of clubs mysteriously floats across the table, and Curley, falling from a wooden horse, points to murder and the solution.
7. "Jigsaw Puzzle Championship Murder" — A woman in her thirties, anxious to meet eligible men, meets three: Mr. Too Right, Mr. Just Right and Mr. Almost Right. Complications arrive in the form of an attractive rival who flirts with all the men as they put jigsaw puzzles together at a competition. During a train ride to an 1840 village, Mr. Just Right disappears, Mr. Too Right turns up in New Orleans, Mr. Almost Right is looking for a tryst, and everyone is looking for a missing million.
8. "Broken Mailposts" — Railroad was the connection between Parrot, Music and Flowers. Monies collected from
a successful, legal-illegal pornography business and fraudulent-legal government money is stolen, stolen, and
again stolen, and the solution lies in someone’s unexpected kindness. Justice doesn’t triumph.
9. "Murder on Governor Clinton’s Upper Back" — Published in Easy Writers and EWG Presents/Without a Clue — Drugs, dwarfs, depravity and dress shops are all enmeshed in the murder of one woman, the beating of
another, and the establishment of a line of successful, expensive, chic women’s clothing stores in seedy urban
areas, replete with politically incorrect changing rooms.
10. "Death of a Bar Change Thief" — Lonely, sophisticated New Yorkers gather every Friday at a neighborhood bar to share companionship and conversation. A stranger flashing a nude, compromising picture of one of them initiates a petty theft, a street murder, a coded message and solutions in the men’s room, all leading to the end of
the group’s comraderie.
11. "The Brilliant Harry Winston’s Murder" — Published in EWG Presents/Without a Clue" — At an opera cocktail party populated by only the crème de la crème, the brilliant Harry Winston glides from group to admiring group, solving the country’s various problems to the applause of all. Suddenly someone discovers the brilliant, dignified Winston dead in the men’s room with his pants down. Only the person who didn’t belong can see the party, Harry, and the murder clearly.
12. "Virtuous Prostitute and Last Supper Murder" — Published in Nefarious — Tales of Mystery — A virtuous, flamboyant prostitute sleeps with everyone and no one, a lazy detective lives off a waitress, a church
supper turns into a last supper, and an infectious disease infects no one but affects many.
"Murder Among Talking Fools" and Other Mystery Short Stories
Table of Contents
1. "Murder Among Talking Fools" — A Friday night, a Manhattan bar, the pick-up scene, and a group of fools
fabricate and fantasize their lives. Modeling, Tom Cruise, drugs, expensive jewelry, and FBI agents are mixed with
continual fighting over who buys the next round. At the end, one fool believes the other fools, leading to murder
and capture by a Fanny Farmer salesgirl.
2. "Uncool Tryst Explosion" — A comical adventure of a very "with-it," cool, elementary school janitor who goes to a cool bar and meets a couple of cool babes. After a cool conversation over cold drinks, he unknowingly misunderstands an invitation for an assignation. Things turn definitely uncool when, while making love, he is
arrested by an army of unsympathetic policemen.
3. "Bride’s Tattoos" — A bride’s tattoos, usher lovers, a former husband, childhood abuse, and the cost of a cake
knife leads to a broken marriage, a broken engagement, attacks on fat girls, abused girls, a widowed bridesmaid
fighting for her honor, and fights over scotch.
4. "Snow Sled Championship" — A Lake Placid children’s championship snow-sled race where thousands of dollars have been waged is mixed with Jane Fonda’s foot, Ted Turner’s jealousy, a beautiful wife on the make, a crazy ski instructor, a phony yachtsman, and a dishonest owner of Lots for Tots.
5. "Outsider’s Solution" — Funny misadventures plague a white male welfare cheat posing as an Hispanic, and his honest, naïve, white partner as they follow a banker, ransoming his wife from Central American terrorists. The
bumbling duo are arrested as terrorists. It is only by standing outside the chaos of ACLU lawyers, politicians, TV talk show hosts and all the hype, can the hero see true reality.
6. "Dangerous Hunt for the Elusive Silver Tea Service" — Trying to recover his aunt’s silver tea service from a suspiciously hard to find step-uncle, a young mall security guard finds bodies, the nose, the stomach, a hairy hand, the grateful dead, unrequited love, SWAT teams, bomb squads, and DEA units. And while sitting on the toilet, he sees the famous Andy Warhol view of a church cross.
7. "Sensitive Guys Don’t Wear Underwear" — During the murder victim’s Domino’s Pizza catered wake, the widow announces her engagement to her lover. Using a series of twenty-four photos of a dog, a frozen pasture, and a sleet-covered tree found at the murder scene, the detective logically deduces which one of the wake’s guests is the murderer.
