'Darling Lorraine', Paranoia Blues, and The Adventures of the Puzzle Club

I first became aware of Josh Pachter back in the early 80s, when I came across his anthology Top Crime. I learned that, in addition to being a meticulous anthologist, he is a short story writer of considerable accomplishment. Many years later, I met Josh and his wife Laurie and discovered that they are terrific companions - one of the downsides of the pandemic is that I've not been able to meet up with them in person for several years.

But we remain in regular contact. Josh was a great help when I was working on the anthology Foreign Bodies and some time ago I had the chance to contribute to a new anthology that Josh was putting together. The connecting theme was that each story would be inspired by a Paul Simon song, though only one song per album could be chosen. I've been a huge Paul Simon fan since my teens. He's a great performer, and a quite wonderful songwriter (and did you know that he once did demo records for Burt Bacharach? Timeless classics such as 'Gotta Get a Girl', later recorded by Frankie Avalon? Suffice to say that both Paul and Burt went on to do much better work!) 

To cut a long story short, I finished up writing a story called 'Darling Lorraine'. The inspiration came from a fascinating visit to the house of a crime writing friend. The building is unique and very appealing and the grounds and local setting are just as intriguing. I felt they would make a terrific setting for a story and the Paul Simon spark was all I needed to come up with a plot. 

And now the anthology has just been published. It's called Paranoia Blues and although I haven't received my copy yet, I'm really looking forward to seeing the other stories, penned by writers ranging from Edwin Hill and Gabriel Valjan to Tom Mead. And as if that were not enough, Josh has also got a new book out via Crippen & Landru. The Adventures of the Puzzle Club combines original snappy mysteries by Ellery Queen and new ones in the same manner by Josh himself. I've made a tiny contribution to the book, but the stories are the thing, and they are great fun.