Mesdames of Mayhem

Huge congratulations are in order: Mmes Sylvia Warsh and Melissa Yi’s YA novels, The Orphan and The Red Rock Killer made it to the list of the Judges Best Picks for the Silver Falchion awards.

Here is how they describe the Judges Best Picks category:

“These selections highlight manuscripts that our judges wished could have made the Finalists lists, but with limited finalist slots, intricate cuts must always be made. Despite the sheer number of entries this year, our dedicated judges went above and beyond once again. On their initiative, they submitted a list of titles they felt deserved extra recognition: manuscripts they felt should be on everyone’s reading list.”

Introducing our new mid-month feature, Mid-Month Mayhem, where the Mesdames and Messieurs share secrets about their lives that their readers could never guess.

And what better way to debut our new feature than to reveal secrets about our three CWC Award nominees, Catherine Astolfo, Therese Greenwood and Melissa Yi!

Mme Catherine Astolfo is a world traveller!

Cathy tells us: “On my tenth trip to Israel, assisting with pilgrimage groups, I stepped off the bus into a hole and broke my ankle. Part of the reason for falling over could have been my backpack full of beer. No, this does not have anything to do with the title of my recent novel, Auntie Beers.”

Cathy’s story, “Farmer Knudson”, one of the connected stories in Auntie Beers, is a finalist for the 2025 CWC Award for Best Short Story.

Mme Therese Greenwood escaped a wildfire!

Therese tells us: “I was alone with fifteen minutes to pack when escaping the Fort McMurray wildfire. After our house (and entire neighborhood) was destroyed, I wrote in What You Take With You about the “valuables” I grabbed on my way out the door: A rolling pin, a beekeeping book, a cat photograph, and a box of stuff that wasn’t worth fifty bucks. Turns out, almost everyone who fled Fort McMurray that day had a box of similarly random items.”

Therese’s story, “Hatcheck Bingo” from our very own anthology, The 13th Letter, is a finalist for the CWC Best Short Story Award.

Mme Melissa Yi can cut your throat – and get away with it!

Melissa is an emergency room physician who can save your life by performing a necessary tracheotomy. How does she find the time to save lives, raise a family AND publish several works a year in a variety of genres from crime, speculative fiction, romance, poetry and YA? Maybe she’s a magician who bends time…

Melissa’s story, “The Longest Night of the Year”, published in EQMM, Nov/Dec 2024, is nominated for the CWC Best Short Story Award. AND her YA mystery, The Red Rock Killer, is short-listed for the CWC Best YA/Juvenile Novel Award!

THE MOB BAR MOB

A Dr. Hope Sze Mystery

by

MELISSA YI

“Open the book, Hope,” said Tucker.

He’d reserved a table for us at the Mob Bar, a retro speakeasy in the basement of Montreal’s Musée Mafioso. I was extra late because Tucker had forgotten to text me the password, so the doorman had refused to let me in.

Once I’d received and muttered the password, Zozzled, the doorman had checked off Dr. Hope Sze in a small, black notebook, tucked the notebook in the left breast pocket of his navy peacoat, tipped his matching retro police cap, and finally allowed me to enter.

I tiptoed into this dark cellar with low ceilings, brick walls, and a mahogany bar. My high heels clacked on the wooden floor, and I scanned past an elderly couple and a trio of drunk businesspeople before I spotted Tucker’s blond hair and green suit gleaming under the dim, yellow light.

Just before I sat down, facing the door, a female server in a discreet black dress placed a glass of ice cubes in front of me, with a blackberry on top of the topmost cube.

“Uh, thanks.” An empty glass?

She pressed a black book, titled The Snitch’s Diary, onto the dark, wood table, beside my right hand.

Tucker also received a book and a glass of ice.

I raised my eyebrows.

That was when Tucker told me to open the book. But the heavy hardback was stuck closed, and its pages were glued together. I sputtered, “This is a fake book!”

Tucker laughed, so I turned the book sideways and used my nails to pry open the lid. It was really a cardboard box made to look like a book. Inside lay a glass flask filled with clear liquid.

“Pretty neat, huh?” said Tucker. “You have to pour your drink yourself. They used to hide booze inside books during the Prohibition.”

The server smiled, and whirled away to serve the businesspeople at the next table, interrupting their chat about mergers and acquisitions.

I popped open the flask and tipped the strong-smelling alcohol into the glass. I might prefer books to booze, but I was willing to try it. “What did you order me?”

“The Hope Diamond Gin. I got the Bee’s Knees.”

I laughed. “They say that in the Archie comics. It means fantastic.”

“Yeah. They named the drink in honor of Bee Jackson, famous for dancing the Charleston, even though she probably ripped off an African-American dance called the Juba.”

I sighed to myself. Ain’t that always the way?

“Yeah. Gin, lemon, and honey sound good, even if it is cultural appropriation.” He started to open the box, but struggled even more than I did.

“Open the book, Tucker,” I said, with an innocent wink.

“I can’t. Mine’s, like, taped shut.” He picked up a sharp swizzle stick.

“Don’t hurt their book!”

“I’m not. The tape would hurt the book more than this stick.”

Tucker’s a family medicine resident like me. I know he’s got good hands. Still, I kept a nervous eye out for the server. I’m pretty sure they don’t want you damaging fake books at the overpriced 21st-century speakeasy.

Fortunately, the server seemed more interested in the old couple by the door. The man held up his glass, showing that he wanted a refill.

Meanwhile, the white businessman next to us grumped, “What about my moonshine?”

I glanced behind me. The bartender rolled up the cuffs of his white shirt and reached for a glass.

In other words, no one noticed Tucker’s surgery on the booze book. I breathed a little more easily—until Tucker opened the book and basically turned translucent. He doesn’t have the half the melanin in my Asian gene pool.

“What is it?” I mouthed at him.

He shut the book, fingers trembling. “It’s not mine.”

“What isn’t?” I whispered.

He texted to me instead of speaking. I’m guessing $20K.

I blinked at him. We went out for a drink and ended up with $20,000 in a booze book?

The doorman seemed like an obvious choice to tell, if only because of his Prohibition police uniform. But maybe I’d been fooled by his cap and double-breasted coat?

We couldn’t trust anyone.

I twisted in my chair to survey the room. The tall, tattooed, toothsome male bartender stared back at me; I counted two servers, including our own; the three businesspeople at the next table—who were the grumpy white man, a white woman, and a Black man; us; and the elderly white couple who looked like they might have survived the Prohibition, or at least been born in the same era as my grandma. None of them were obvious sources of twenty grand.

“Huh,” I said. “So, we should call the police?”

Tucker shook his head. “I don’t know that this is a crime.”

“Yeah, but money doesn’t fall out of the sky. Or out of a book.”

“Agreed. It’s just…I’ve never seen so much money before.”

Both of us were poor students. I don’t think anyone outside medicine has a clue that most of us graduate with at least $200,000 in debt. So free money was awfully tempting.

Tucker exhaled and said, “Okay. We have to figure out what to do with it. Let me go to the secret room.”

I started to ask, “What secret room?” But he’d already leaped out of his seat, the book tucked under his green suit jacket as he headed for the door.

I whipped out my phone to research Prohibition. When the U.S. banned liquor sales in 1920, people turned to speakeasies, or underground bars. Modern speakeasies tend to replicate secret rooms, if only so they can charge $20 a drink.

If Tucker had a second password, that doorman could probably find him a good hidey-hole.

I prayed that Tucker had that password.

“Where is it?” demanded the businesswoman with a sharp nose, and an even sharper voice, drawing my attention back to the neighboring table.

“I don’t got it,” snapped the oversized white businessman beside her.

I shrank down in my seat, remembered I was supposed to be cool, and stirred my drink instead. I didn’t dare drink it; I had to keep every last brain cell active.

“Ronald, where’d you put it?” the Black businessman beside him asked.

“In a safe place,” grumpy Ronald replied. “I told you that you could trust me, Rose,” he added to the sharp woman.

Okay. Ronald and Rose. Those should be easy to remember. At least they were both R names. I avoided their eyes. Both men looked ready to fight. Even Rose could probably smash me. She looked twice my age, but also gave off a vibe like she’d fight dirty.

“I told you to leave the money alone. Now, where is it?” Rose issued each word deliberately and viciously. Like a bullet.

Ronald shrank away. “I sent it to the back. I used a code word.”

“You idiot. What code word?” Rose snapped.

“Look, no one’s mad at you, Ronald, but we need the money,” said the Black guy.

Rose shifted closer to Ronald. “I’m mad at you. I’d cut your eyes out if Xavier here didn’t stop me.”

Ronald bleated back to her, “Bees.”

“What?”

“That’s the safe word. That’s how I know it goes to the right place. Bees.”

“You idiot. One of the drinks here is called the Bee’s Knees. In fact, I think that old lady ordered one.”

Uh-oh. They all turned to stare at the old lady by the door, who continued to chat with her white-haired husband. The doorman/policeman hovered in the doorway too, although I saw no sign of Tucker.

Rose smacked her glass on the table. “Only one way to find out.”

Oh, no. I couldn’t let her hurt that old couple.

I headed for the door, pretended that my feet were hurting in my stilettos (true story), and plopped in a seat at the empty table next to the oldsters so I could adjust my heels, letting the trio pass by.

“Good evening,” said Rose to the old lady. “We got our drinks order mixed up. Any chance you got the wrong book?”

The tiny, bespectacled, white-haired lady pointed to her drink. “It’s quite delicious, thank you.”

The elderly man looked up from his black notebook, where he was making notes. “Nothing wrong with my moonshine.”

“May I see your Snitch’s Diary?” Rose said, now displaying a tiny gun in her hand.

I dialed 911, and prayed under my breath that Tucker would hide in that secret room, far away from the door.

The doorman/fake cop took a step from the doorway toward the couple. “Hey, now.”

“Hey, what?” Rose turned the gun on him.

His hand twitched toward her, and she pulled the trigger, hitting him on the left side of his chest.

The blast reverberated through the basement, and the doorman collapsed with a heavy thump, making the wood floor vibrate under our feet.

“Rose!” Ronald gasped.

“Shut up and find my money, unless you want to go with him!”

Meanwhile, my cell phone speaker said, “Nine-one-one, how may I direct your call?”

“Man shot at the Mob Bar,” I whispered.

“I can’t hear your response, ma’am. Do you need police or ambulance?”

“Both!”

I didn’t dare say more, but I left the call live so that police could triangulate the Mob Bar’s location—if cell phone reception kept working in the basement, which was a big if.

“Now get his book, you idiot,” said Rose. “Xavier, you take care of everyone else.”

I cringed, scanning the room for weapons. My flask rested on my table. I could break it over someone’s head, but not three someone’s heads, let alone one armed with a gun. Chair—not great. My stiletto—same.

The old man rose to his feet. “Now, son, we can figure out another solution to this.”

“Shut up, Grandpa,” said Rose.

Grandpa yanked a gun out from under his suit jacket. “If you insist.”

What? Another gun? This is Canada!

Then Grandma planted her feet, and locked her arms, both hands bracing her own pistol.

A third gun? You’re kidding me.

I couldn’t outrun three guns. I hit the deck, banging my knees before I caught myself with my hands. Plus, I bit my tongue when my chin conked onto the floor. Still, I was alive.

Alive enough to hear sirens wailing outside.

“Is that the cops?” Ronald asked.

Cars screeched to a halt. Doors slammed.

“Kill them!” Rose shouted. “Ronald, take out the old biddies!”

“Don’t do it, Ronald!”

I flinched, recognizing Tucker’s voice from the hallway.

“D’you hear what I said?” Rose yelled.

“Killing them won’t bring back the money!” I shouted from the floor.

“Everyone shut up!” Rose screamed.

Feet trampled down the stairs, and the police—the real police—shouted at us to put our hands up.

I obeyed.

So did Rose and Ronald, especially once Xavier turned a fourth gun on them. Turned out he was an undercover cop.

As were “Grandma” and “Grandpa,” whose aging makeup didn’t hold up as well once the bartender turned up the lights full blast.

I rushed to check on the fallen doorman. He blinked, and met my eyes when I ripped open his navy peacoat and hauled up his white cotton undershirt,—revealing only an indented bruise on his left breast.

Don’t tell them, he mouthed at me.

He wanted to stay “dead” until the coast was clear. Smart man.

“But—” He wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest. How had he survived Rose’s gunshot?

I yanked the coat closed. His black notebook thumped on the floor, a tiny bullet trapped in its back cover.

I almost laughed, but I buttoned his coat up until the police led Rose and Ronald out the door.

Author’s Note: Inspired by the true story of Constable Jeremy Snow, a New Zealand police officer whose notebook stopped a bullet aimed at his heart: www dot stuff dot co dot nz/national/4654409/Shot-officer-saved-by-notebook

Called the “Queen of Comedy” by the Toronto Sun, Melodie Campbell was also named the “Canadian literary heir to Donald Westlake” by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.  Winner of 10 awards, including the Derringer and the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence, she has multiple bestsellers and has been featured in USA Today.  She is the past executive director of Crime Writers of Canada (CWC).

Melodie joins CWC’s Erik D’Souza for a chat about the issue of women’s rights in her latest novel, The Silent Film Star Murders, and also what makes a Canadian cozy, as opposed to those written in the UK or the US.

You can find the interview on CWC’s Buzzsprout or Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music and numerous other podcasts.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2232876/episodes/16894134