Jack Fredrickson

SHAMUS AWARD NOMINEE for BEST FIRST NOVEL,

can be short with you!

 

CRIMES BY MOONLIGHT
An anthology edited by Charlaine Harris;
Berkley Prime Crime - April 2010

"Tadesville," by Jack Fredrickson

“If you're reading this, you found my shiny box.

If it was lying on the ground, the hanging twine all rotted, it might mean that it's over.

But if you found it hanging in the tree, the twine tight like I checked it recent, best you run.

If you can.”

“A heartland of surreality" - Women of Mystery

"For The Jingle"

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
May 2009

Harry Ruffino, a lawyer in a shiny suit (imagine) hires Dek Elstrom to find out how much of a killer his client is. Nothing unusual; Harry's never been picky. But something else nags: Harry is working pro bono. This, from a lawyer so cheap he'd hide in the dark, Halloween, rather than part with even a bite of a Baby Ruth, is too much to fathom. Especially when Harry turns up dead, and the chief suspect is still in jail.




AN ELLERY QUEEN'S 2009 READERS' POLL FAVORITE!
(Sixth Place, but what the hey; it's better than Jack usually places.)

THE BLUE RELIGION
An Anthology edited by Michael Connelly;
Little, Brown - Spring 2008

"A Change in His Heart" by Jack Fredrickson

It's snowing. Detective Edrow Fluett's boots leak.

Jerzy's working upstairs at the Closeout Hut, signing tax forms he doesn't understand. It's what Reggie wants. Reggie's downstairs, selling fire-smoked boots to babushkas, taking in pockets full of crumpled twenties and fifties.

But now Jerzy's discovered that Reggie took in something else, a letter. A long time ago. A letter that would have changed Jerzy's life. Now Jerzy's got to change Reggie's life.

And Detective Edrow Fluett's got to figure out how he did it.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE MAGAZINE
January 6, 2008

"The Decline and Fall of the Helpful Hardware Man" by Jack Fredrickson


Read the essay

CHICAGO BLUES
An anthology edited by Libby Fischer Hellmann;
Bleak House Books - October 2007

"Good Evenin', Blues" by Jack Fredrickson

Sure, Jimbo was mindful of the old Delta legend about bargaining with the devil when he named his blues joint The Crossroads. But that was just a myth -- or so he thought, until the stranger showed up.

"An author with an acclaimed recent debut novel, Jack Fredrickson (A Safe Place for Dying) demonstrates equal talent in short form." - Publishers Weekly










More about
"Chicago Blues"


"The Brick Thing"
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
September/October, 2002

A man moves into the house next door. That's reasonable enough, even though the man is very wealthy and it is a neighborhood of modest, single story homes. What's not reasonable is the man starts taking the house apart from the inside, board by board, in the middle of the night. When he thinks no one is watching.

But someone is.


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