James Blakey

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About James Blakey
James Blakey lives in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley where he writes full-time (mostly short genre fiction: Crime/Mystery, SciFi, Fantasy, Horror, Western and Romance.).
His "The Bicycle Thief" won the Short Mystery Fiction Society's 2019 Derringer Award for Best Flash Story.
When he's not writing, you can find James on the hiking trail (he's climbed 40 of the 50 US high-points) or bike-camping his way up and down the East Coast.
Learn more at his website: http://jamesblakeywrites.com/
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Titles By James Blakey
The stories we feature in our monthly issues span every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries. Evocative writing and a compelling story are the only certainty.
Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and entertained--whether you enjoy the style of the Golden Age of mystery (e.g., Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle), the glorious pulp digests of the early twentieth century (e.g., Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), or contemporary masters of mystery.
In our cover feature story, D.S. White provides a rollicking caper with “Clowns On The Run”: A carload of clowns tries to elude capture before they can break open a safe full of loot.
Lani Steele’s “How Mrs. Hitt Stopped Scrimping And Found Happiness With A Hit Man” finds Mrs. Hitt a satisfied customer of her mysterious hit man. Then Detective Snapp threatens to ruin everything.
“A Man Is Worth A Thousand Pictures” by Erik Deckers explores Bonnie’s love of a man she's never met, but stalked on camera every time he drives through one of Florida's toll gates. She tries to think of ways they can be together, but can't do anything about it until his wife finally disappears.
In a curious mystery, ““Do Not Pass Go …”” by James Blakey, a stranger arrives in an even stranger town and finds himself embroiled in corruption and murder.
Greg Herren’s “Keeper Of The Flame” challenges you to solve along, when an interview brings back horrifying memories for the daughter of a deceased crime writer.
A darker tale, “A Silver .38” by Peter W. J. Hayes, finds that getting into the mob is easy; it's having a good plan to get out that's hard.
Plus a short You-Solve-It by Laird Long: “Egg On His Face”.
It's not just the weather outside that's frightful! This holiday-themed anthology features 30 shocking and unnerving stories and poems to spread holiday fear. Wight Christmas subverts Christmas tropes, spinning new traditions around murder and monsters, cannibalism and the occult, hostile takeovers and indentured servitude, and yes, even wights.
Wight Christmas includes work by:
- Chris Campeau
- Warren Brown
- Matt Singleton
- Jon Hansen
- Y Len
- Dexter McLeod
- C.L. Holland
- Stephen Oliver
- Martin Munks
- Brandon Ketchum
- John Lance
- Tim McDaniel
- James Blakey
- Joshua Harding
- Shelly Lyons
- Andrew Majors
- Rainie Zenith
- Kara Race-Moore
- Carson Buckingham
- David F. Shultz
- Donna J. W. Munro
- Rhian Bowley
- Rio Murphy
- Alice Loweecey
- Stephen Howard
- David Tallerman
- Jude Reid
- Karen Walker
- Olin Wish
- Sarah Crabtree
Included are:
James Blakey
Melissa H. Blaine
Michael Bracken
Anna Castle
Brendan DuBois
David Dean
John M. Floyd
Barb Goffman
Heidi Hunter
Eleanor Cawood Jones
Adam Meyer
Barbara Monajem
Korina Moss
Art Taylor
Cathy Wiley
Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and entertained--whether you enjoy the style of the Golden Age of mystery (e.g., Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle), the glorious pulp digests of the early twentieth century (e.g., Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), or contemporary masters of mystery.
In this issue:
Our cover story, “The Delta Princess” by John M. Floyd: When drifter Luke Grayson is attacked by thugs in a small Southern town, he's rescued by a female worker at a nearby cotton plantation—but he soon discovers that his mysterious benefactor has plans that will change both their lives.
“The Story Game” by R.T. Lawton: People sometimes play games with themselves, but these games may be misleading.
“The Earl” by Adam Leeder: A disgraced ex-detective, a seaside flophouse, a favor for a friend … This may not end well.
“The Edge Of The World” by Albert Tucher: In Hilo, Hawaii, criminal defense attorney Agnes Rodrigues finds murder at her front door.
“Mulch Ado About Plenty” by Sharon Love Cook: Mrs. Bullock, neighborhood busybody, knows where the bodies are buried.
“A Real Detective” by Joseph Kuttler: A traffic cop bites off more than he can chew when he stumbles upon a deadly scene in the Grand Canyon.
“A Murder Of Crones” by C.L. Cobb: Never underestimate an old lady. And don’t turn your back on her either.
“The Passenger” by Rosemary McCracken: Pat Tierney is uneasy when her friend, Stéphane, agrees to give a stranger a lift on their return from an out-of-town job fair. An hour later, Pat wishes she'd voiced her objections.
“Try Again” by Vinnie Hansen: In this noir tale, Suzi, a pole dancer, loses her job. She's been duped and manipulated but will take a shot at reclaiming her dignity.
“Final Blow” by Mark Levenson: In a Russian circus long ago, a magician and a strongman have one shared interest: the magician's wife.
“The Case Of The Ripped Off Ruby” a You-Solve-It By James Blakey: When a valuable jewel goes missing, Detective Sally Tilden must sift through a series of suspects to find the thief.
Custom Cover Art by Robin Grenville Evans.
An anthology of 34 short mysteries involving a menagerie of animals, some broken machines and a load of red herrings. Let these authors take you on one mysterious adventure after another.
There comes a time when the amount of unusual submissions gets you to thinking: How can we use this stuff?
The answer is, of course, when you get enough to put together a collection of short fiction that will hopefully make you go Hmmmmm.
Yet that doesn’t mean every piece in here has been written with a psychotic eye for Avant-garde detail. Okay, maybe some have – the Law of Percentages would dictate for one thing – and there is also the fact that writers are, well, to put it bluntly, often overly surreal in their inventiveness at times.
But that’s certainly no reason to just leave these stories on the side in the hope that they will wander off of their own accord.
Of the 21 writers within these pages, it would be fair to say that none wrote their pieces specifically for this anthology. However, if it had not of been for them taking a gamble, then this collection would not be seeing the light of day.
Jesse Hilson, Gabriel Stevenson, Maddi Davidson, Brandon Barrows, Robb T. White, Regina Clarke, Martin Zeigler, K. G. Anderson, Andrew Hook, Ed Nobody, Jody Smith, Michael Grimala, W. T. Patterson, James Blakey, Emilian Wojnowski, Andrew Darlington, Lawrence Allan, Ricky Sprague, Bethany Maines, John M. Floyd and Julie Richards
Len Stafford is a millionaire inventor, but when crime strikes, he leaves his penthouse apartment to become THE BLUE CIRCLE, masked crusader for justice. He leaves notes on blue paper with a large blue circle to relay messages, either to strike fear in his enemies or to summon help from those allied with him. He carries no weapons aside from his powerful fists, athletic ability, and keen analytical mind.
THE BLUE CIRCLE, however, is more than just a man in a mask. The name also refers to seven former criminals. While in prison, each member showed enough remorse for their crimes for Stafford to write letters of commendation to the State Governor. In turn, the governor granted the seven people early paroles. In return for their release, these people advise Stafford in his costumed identity, acting as consultants, even sometimes taking a hand alongside their representative in the streets.
Three of today’s best genre fiction authors take on this nearly forgotten classic character from the Golden Age of Comics in three new stories. Even when the Blue Line may not be enough, criminals fear THE BLUE CIRCLE!
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF THE BLUE CIRCLE. From Pro Se Productions.
Robert Lee Beers - A hardboiled P.I. and his partner must find their way back to the present from 1906 San Francisco before the Big One hits, dodging gunslingers and the risk of changing history, with only a drunken misanthropic wizard to help them...
James Blakey - A sheriff must question a colourful cast of characters to discover who has stolen a unicorn rancher's herd...
Zach Chapman - A card-cheating Spellslinger must duel a mysterious Green Gunslinger to his damnation or salvation...
Sara Codair - Two Martian sheriffs must stop a gang of outlaws from stealing a settlement's precious water, if they can keep their marriage together long enough to do it...
Eric S. Fomley - A marshal comes to town seeking an outlaw, but neither he nor the outlaw are the ordinary kind...
Milo James Fowler – Heroic Coyote Cal, the witch Donna Jamieson, and his faithful sidekick Big Yap, must stop a monster from ravaging the livestock and people of a town in the western desert...
Ron S. Friedman - A WWI pilot shot down over the Amazon must survive Germans, crazy scientists, the jungle and dinosaurs...
Carrie Gessner - An elven veteran is called back to face her demons when a little girl is snatched to serve the army that destroyed her...
Paul Alex Gray - The heir to the Bourbon Throne must earn coin in America to overthrow the French Republic and reclaim his birthright, so he builds a fantastic contraption to aid him...
Jude-Marie Green - Sorceress Jane Smith knows her partner Donna Quick is quite mad, but she follows her anyway...
Brent A. Harris - Marshal Bass Reeves has been asked for help by a desperate frontier settlement beleaguered by a dragon...
Ethan Hedman - A wandering gunfighter inherits an enchanted weapon, but it's broken...
Joachim Heijndermans - Two outlaws hole up in a quiet town full of terrified townsfolk, but all is not as it seems...
Russell Hemmell - Two investigators must discover why an entire colony in the Kuiper Belt has disappeared, leaving nothing but an anachronistic western frontier town in its place...
Liam Hogan - A young outlaw is hunted by an implacable mechanical foe...
G. Scott Huggins - A blacksmith with ghostly allies receives an unusual, and dangerous, client...
Sean Jones - The last Norse descendant in North America, who swears vengeance on the Comanche for killing his wife and village, is given supernatural aid by the Navajo...
Mackenzie Kincaid - Junior died helping Pa maintain the fence against the Somethings, so now 12-year-old Jane must take his place...
R. Daniel Lester - An old tap-dancing celebrity defaults on the payments for his magical shoes, and a repo agent has come to collect...
Diane Morrison - Two young elven Gunslingers must stop a cannibal spirit before it, or the blizzard it brings, kills everyone they know...
Diana L. Paxson - A painter journeys to the Rockies to paint landscapes, and stumbles upon an ancient mystery...
Claire Ryan - Rollo is going to get her giant slug herd in to market, come hell or high water, monster or no monster...
Ricardo Victoria - An ex-spellslinger has taken up a career as a travelling salesbeing of a newfangled weapon called a "rifle"...
Stanley B. Webb - A U.S. Marshal must stop a notorious outlaw who may or may not be a dragon...