The Executioner Mystery Magazine

The Executioner Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1 No. 7 (August 1975) This issue contains twelve short crime and mystery stories. The lead feature, "The Busy Corpse" by Stephen Mertz, follows private detective O'Dair and Lieutenant Hal Brooks, a black police officer. After Brooks is drugged and framed with a mobster's corpse planted in his apartment, O'Dair devises an unconventional scheme: he and Brooks stage an elaborate deception involving the dead body, a staged meeting with Mafia don Vito Corona in Leland Park, and hired gunfire to position Corona and Brooks as victims of each other's violence—thereby destroying the frame-up and turning the crime against the perpetrators. Additional stories include "The Night Caller" by Carl Rathjen, "The Last Dutchess" by William Jon Watkins, "His Honor the Mayor" by John Lutz, and "Understudy for Murder" by Jack Matcha, among others. Contributors include Richard Deming, Talmage Powell, Lawrence Fischer, Margaret Maron, and Chris Lumpton with David Bischoff.