16 stories, some poetry and the usual non-fiction parts make up a decent issue.

Dick Francis opens the issue with a first US publication of "The Day of the Losers" (originally published in the February 1977 issue of "Horse and Hound"). Awhile ago, a big amount of money was stolen and none of the money had resurfaced. It is the day of the Grand National and one of the jockeys seems to have issues - bigger ones than usual anyway. And then a few of the missing banknotes show up. I am not sure what was more surprising - the end in regards of the banknotes or the final reveal of who the guy who floated them actually was. A great start of the issue.

In "Eyes That See, Ears that Hear" by John H. Dirckx, Officer Spoerl is trying to find out what happened to a man (Herbert French) who died from a stab wound in a park. While noone saw the stabbing, the waitress of a local eatery has a lot of information to share, confirming a lot of the assumptions of the police. I loved the ending of this story (listening to people while having firm assumptions is never a good idead).

"You Don't Need an Enemy" by Rose Million Healey deals with a very similar topic but from a different angle - people sharing information may not always be sharing it for the reason the police expects. It is a twisty story which makes you question anything said and done - until the very end (although the end was not as unexpected as in the previous story).

The next two stories also make a logical pair of stories about littering (and I wonder if they were submitted with these titles or the editors renamed them to make them a proper pair): in "Every Little Bit Helps" by Patricia McGerr, a police officer's wife solves a murder case that had kept her husband scratching his head for awhile because of he habit to collect weird things; in "Every Little Bit Hurts" by Michael Avallone, an officer's son decides to actually listen to what he had been told for a change with disastrous consequences. Despite the common topic, the stories are as different as they can be - and both work nicely.

"The Wrong Murder" by Lionel Booker gets us into the glamorous world of TV series when the actor playing one of the main roles is murdered while on the set. The narrator (an actor with a bit role) and the police detective had worked together before so they pair up again to try to figure out what happened. The title of the story tells you where this is leading although even with that, the actual resolution is a surprise (in a good way).

The two "Department of First Stories" tales seem to be chosen for being as different as possible from each other: "Swann's Song" by Frank B. Roome has a dying gambler remembering an old trick he pulled on a casino (which turns out to be not what everyone think it was) and "The Straw That Broke" by Mary Sullivan is an almost old-fashioned story of a wife with an overbearing husband who really does not know when to stop. Both are enjoyable - even of both are somewhat predictable.

"The Varmint Killer" by Jay Murphy (the second story by her in EQMM and filed under "Department of Second Stories") has another husband who should have known better. It is told in the voice of an old man telling an old story from his memories - a story of rural America, populated by characters who come alive from the page. You are not sure when you should laugh and when you should feel sorry for some of these characters. Now I want to track the issue with Murphy's first story.

And as crafty as some of the characters in that stories were, the main character in "The Man with Ideas" by John Abbott, takes that to new extremes. A man with ideas is a man you do not want to piss off...

"The Sole of the Foot" by Shizuko Natsuki (unknown translator and original title) takes us to Japan with a tale dealing with missing money and with men with ideas, thus tying it with other stories in the issue. This one is very Japanese - in its setting, in its resolution and in how people behave. What would you do if you discover a fraud? Probably not what one of the characters do in this story - but then you probably need to be Japanese to do what he does.

The non-fiction parts of the magazine usually sound the most dated. And while this is somewhat the case here, R. E. Porter's "Crime Beat" is a nice window into what was happening in the publishing world of 1981 (more books about Sayers than about Christie and other books by and from women, special edition of the new King novel Cujo and new novels by Graham Greene expected being the highlights for me), Chris Steinbrunner takes us on a tour of the current movies and cinema (including a visit to Cinecitta in Milan, Italy), Michael Gilbert's interview (a continuation of the interview started in the previous issue) deals with his ideas and though process and Jon L. Breen's "The Jury Box" has a mix of books and authors who are still popular (MacDonald, Deighton, van de Wetering) and some I had not heard of (but now want to read...)

Gary Alexander follows that with two very short stories ("Game Show" and "Talk Show") which are transcripts of the announcer's words in a show (the type is based on title) which have some interesting twists but I was very happy that they are that short.

"Nine Strokes of the Bell" by John F. Suter belong to his Uncle Abner series and gets us back to a much earlier year in American history (with wagons and blacksmiths and whatsnot (it is not dates precisely)). What appears initially to be a tragic incident soon starts looking anything but. A solid story of detection - although the solution required knowledge of the times which a modern reader may not have.

"What a Treasure!" by Celia Dale made me laugh - the ending was so surprising and so delightful - expecting that you are the only one with plans is never a good idea.

The issue closes with the Edward D. Hoch story "The Spy Who Didn't Defect" (this was only his 8th year of stories in every single issue of the magazine - the first one was in May 1973 and he had one in each issue until his death in 2008 - and a few issues beyond that - making it a 35 years of unbroken streak...). The story features Rand (a code and cipher expert, formerly with the Department of Concealed Communications of British intelligence) who bumps into a man he used to know - and who was believed to have defected to Russia years before that. Except he is still in England and Rand really wants to know why - even if he ends up hating the answer. I've always liked Hoch's style and this one is as twisty as usual (and Rand is a good character, even if he is not as memorable as some of his other creations).

Add a big dose of poetry filling any available place (most of them amusing short poems).

Overall, a good issue with none of the stories sounding dated even 40+ years later. ( )