Paula Guran at Prime Books just released the contents of her Weird Detectives anthology. I’ve got a story in this one. Note that this is an alphabetic listing, not necessarily the final order of the stories. You can see a more complete description at the Prime Books web site.

“Cryptic Coloration” by Elizabeth Bear
“The Key” by Ilsa J. Blick
“Mortal Bait” Richard Bowes
“Star of David” by Patricia Briggs
“Love Hurts” by Jim Butcher
“Swing Shift” by Dana Cameron
“The Necromancer’s Apprentice” by Lillian Stewart Carl
“Sherlock Holmes and the Diving Bell” by Simon Clark
“The Adakian Eagle” by Bradley Denton
“Hecate’s Golden Eye” by P.N. Elrod
“The Case of Death and Honey” by Neil Gaiman
“The Nightside, Needless to Say” by Simon R. Greene
“Deal Breaker” by Justin Gustainis
“Death by Dahlia” by Charlaine Harris
“See Me” by Tanya Huff
“Signatures of the Dead” by Faith Hunter
“The Maltese Unicorn” by Caitlín R. Kiernan
“The Case of the Stalking Shadow” by Joe R. Lansdale
“Like a Part of the Family” by Jonathan Maberry
“The Beast of Glamis” by William Meikle
“Fox Tails” by Richard Parks
“Imposters” by Sarah Monette
“Defining Shadows” by Carrie Vaughn

“Fox Tails” of course is from the Lord Yamada series (not sure how this can be “recent investigations” when this story is set over a thousand years ago, but let’s not get too literal here). This is actually the second detective/mystery oriented anthology it has appeared in. Which stands to reason, since I envisioned Yamada from the beginning as sort of a noir Heian detective, and “Fox Tails,” the first of them, was probably the story that most clearly embodied that original vision. Yet, and even though there are strong elements of adventure fantasy in all of the Yamada stories, that element of the mystery story is always there as well. So far as I’m concerned, it’s that combination of adventure fantasy and mystery that defines the Lord Yamada series.

I went through a period in my early reading in HS when just about the only new (to me)books available were classic mysteries from a neighbor’s library, and I went through a fair number of them: Ellery Queen, Father Brown, Reginald Fortune…not much Agatha Christie or Chandler, though. Our neighbor didn’t swing that way. Regardless, I’ve always had a soft spot for the mystery story, and in the Lord Yamada series I get to indulge that inclination while staying true to my real loves, fantasy and folklore.

Not that you needed or wanted to know about any of this, but hey, I had to talk about something. And it’s my blog so I can do what I want.