THE “THANK GAWD IT’S 2024” EDITION
Okay, we’re twenty-five. Now, get over it…
Last “issue,” we might have mentioned in passing that the THRILLING DETECTIVE WEB SITE had staggered and stumbled its way to its twenty-fifth anniversary (April 1, 2023).
Since then, a slew of events, both good (the 2023 San Diego Bouchercon, which included the Shamus Awards Dinner and a full-to-the-rafters panel on the future of the genre), the bad (major plumbing issues, a slab leak, the dishwasher that died, simultaneously renewing my Green Card and driver’s license, and applying for Medicare) and the ugly (COVID is not as much fun as promised) have kept us alternately hopping or lying in bed, bemoaning our fate. Holidays? What holidays?
But 2023 is over, and it looks like 2024 is gonna be something else, as I dive into both the present & the future, acting as a PWA judge for BEST P.I. SHORT STORIES of 2023 category, and doing a survey of P.I. Short Fiction of 2024 for editor Michael Bracken’s upcoming Best Private Eye Stories Of The Year For 2024.
As for this issue’s cover, what can I say? The Girl Detective (aka D.L. Browne, aka Josh Lanyon, aka She Who Must Be Obeyed, etc.) has been tinkering around with various AI generators for the last few months, and came up with this moody little bit of mean streets.
If you like it, a version of it is available as a T-shirt on Sleuth Street, as well as a few other Thrilling Detective-inspired items.
And speaking of T-shirts, at the 2023 San Diego Bouchercon, I gave out over seventy T-shirts celebrating our 25th anniversary, suggesting that folks send me or post a selfie of them wearing them.
Here are the results so far…
Kevin Burton Smith
Editor/Founder
Kevin, thanks for those 25 years in service of P.I. fiction!