The last story of It’s About Impossible Crime (2025) is coming along and I’m making notes for the final edits on the other four. I like this short story process, i.e. writing a story and then putting it aside to work on another one. It’s good to step away and return with fresh eyes. There’s a clue I forgot to plant in Cue Murder that greatly improves the reveal and the mention of a certain someone in Instrument of Death had to be eliminated to help obscure the solution.
The Preminger Curse has become fun to write. I had to finalize the characters and their motives so their interactions made sense. I also had to make a map of the mansion — at least the first floor — in order to create the opportunities for murder. I’m chugging along at a faster pace.
And yes, I have begun to think about the cover. I originally wanted to do a noirish cover ala the Jim Thompson reprints in the early 90s. I liked the idea of using a photograph.
Now, I’m leaning away from that. One of the influences on this book was MacKinlay Kantor’s It’s About Crime (obviously).
I may go for something subtly retro.
This is where my thoughts are at the moment. I’ve got other vague notions, including turning Cue Murder! into a radio play. That might be too ambitious at this late stage. It could be cool though.
I’ve already given synopses of the stories, but not altogether. Here they are:
It’s About Impossible Crime
1. Silent Steps of Murder
In the dead of a Chicago winter, Detective Rowan Manory and his loyal assistant Walter Williams stumble upon a brutal murder—Veronica Hart, slain in her apartment. But when the only footprints in the snow belong to the police, Rowan’s sharp mind begins to unravel a tangled web of infidelity, deception, and desperation. In a city where someone is always watching, justice is a matter of perspective—and Rowan never misses a detail.
2. Where There’s Smoke, There’s Pazuzu
A man is found burned and butchered in a locked room—his body torn apart . No one entered, no one left, and when the fire department broke down the door, the room was empty. The only clue? A whispered warning over the telephone, a name pulled from ancient nightmares: Pazuzu. Rowan Manory doesn’t believe in demons, but as he follows the trail of a curse that should be impossible, even he starts to wonder—what if this time, the devil is real?
3. Instrument of Death
When a renowned psychic warns Violet Reynolds that she will be murdered, she tries to dismiss it—until her friend is found strangled, a cryptic clue left behind. As more bodies fall, the killer moves methodically, relentlessly toward her. Trapped in a failing marriage with nowhere to turn, she feels the noose tightening, but every attempt to escape only draws her closer to death. Is fate guiding the killer’s hand, or is someone pulling the strings? With time running out, Detective Rowan Manory must untangle the mystery before Violet becomes the next victim.
4. The Preminger Curse
When a series of mysterious deaths strikes the storied Preminger family, private detective Rowan Manory and his partner Walter Williams are summoned to a decaying Southern Illinois mansion, isolated by floodwaters and choked in swamp. The Premingers believe they are haunted by a generational curse—one that drives a single heir mad with murderous intent. Now, with the family gathered for the reading of a cryptic will, and the estate cloaked in shadows and secrets, someone begins to kill again. Trapped in a crumbling house where no one is safe and nothing is as it seems, Rowan must race to uncover the truth behind the Preminger curse… before the madness claims them all.
5. Cue Murder
Two men hear a murder from the apartment downstairs—but when they arrive, the door is locked, the body is cooling, and the only two people nearby insist they’re innocent. The suspects seem obvious, yet in a room full of grudges, everyone had a reason to want the victim dead—even the witnesses. Somewhere in the swirl of alibis and accusations, a single conversation will reveal the truth—if anyone is clever enough to catch it.
James Scott Byrnside 