2023 Medical Examiner Mystery Reading Challenge

 

Once again Rick at the Rick Mills Project will be offering up the Medical Examiner Mystery Reading Challenge as well as the Six Shooter Challenge. I, having no self-control when it comes to challenges--especially mystery-related challenges, will--of course--sign up for both. He's got them both on deck for 2023 (and also the Beachcomber Challenge), so here I go again....For full details, check out the link above. Basically, just read mysteries and log the number of named corpses on his handy form.

Rick doesn't require a sign-up post, but in order to claim this one as complete on my own personal challenge tally sheet, I must submit at least 20 death certificate reports. With the number of mysteries I read per year, this shouldn't be too difficult.

 

1. The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson [2 deaths] (1/7/23)

2. Beauty Marks the Spot by Kelley Roos [2 deaths] (1/7/23)

3. The Becket Factor by Michael David Anthony [14 deaths] (1/9/23)

4. The Dante Game by Jane Langton [9 deaths] (1/13/23)

5. Swing Low, Swing Death by R. T. Campbell [2 deaths] (1/17/23) 

6. The Angry Heart by Leslie Edgley [7 deaths] (1/21/23)

7. A Gentleman's Murder by Christopher Huang [10 deaths] (1/22/23)

8. Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper [2 deaths] (1/23/23)

9. Mysterious Invitation by Bernice Bloom [9 deaths] (1/27/23)

10. The Crimson Clue by George Harmon Coxe [4 deaths] (1/30/23)

11. Wings Above the Diamantina by Arthur W. Upfield [7 deaths] (2/3/23)

12. Here Come the Dead by Robert Portner Koehler [4 deaths] (2/5/23)

**************The following stories all come from Garden of Deadly Delights edited by Cynthia Manson (2/7/23)

13. "How Does Your Garden Grow" by Agatha Christie [one death]

14. "The Cop Who Loved Flowers" by Henry Slesar [one death]

15. "Garden of Evil" by Carol Cail [5 deaths]

16. "Clubbed to Death" by Donald Olsen [one death]

17. "The Garden of Smoke" by G. K. Chesterton [2 deaths]

18. "The Price of Tomatoes" by William Bunce [one death]

19. "Early Retirement" by Frances Usher [5 deaths]

20. "Venus Fly-Trap" by Ruth Rendell [one death]

21. "The Puzzle Garden" by Edward D. Hoch [3 deaths]

22. "A Curtain of Green" by Eudora Welty [one death]

23. "The Scent of Murder" by Frances & Richard Lockridge [one death]

24. "Three Men in a Garden" by Lord Dunsany [one death]

25. "The Ronnie" by K. D. Wentworth [2 deaths]

26. "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne [one death]

27. "Parrots in My Garden" by Dorothy B. Davis [2 deaths]

28. "The Azalea War" by Wyc Toole [3 deaths]

29. "The Mushroom Fanciers" by Lawrence Treat [one death]

*****************

30. Murder R.F.D. by Leslie Stephan [6 deaths]

31. The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian [19 deaths]

****************The following stories all come from Marple: Twelve New Mysteries (2/15/23)

32. "Evil in Small Places" by Lucy Foley [2 deaths]

33. "The Second Murder at the Vicarage" by Val McDermid [2 deaths]

34. "The Unravelling" by Natalie Haynes [one death]

35. "The Open Mind" by Naomi Aldeman [one death]

36. "The Jade Empress" by Jean Kwok [2 deaths]

37. "A Deadly Wedding Day" by Dreda Say Mitchell [one death]

38. "Murder at the Villa Rosa" by Elly Griffiths [4 deaths]

39. "The Murdering Sort" by Karen M. McManus [one death]

40. "The Mystery of the Acid Soil" by Kate Mosse [2 deaths]

41. "The Disappearance" by Leigh Bardugo [2 deaths]

******************

The following stories are from the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Jan. 1996 (2/16/23)

42. "The Silent Night Before Christmas" by Gene DeWeese [2 deaths]

43. "A House Is Not a Home" by Martin Edwards [2 deaths]

44. "Hoops" by S. J. Rozen [2 deaths]

45. "The Carer" by Ruth Rendell [one death]

46. "The Problem of the Enormous Owl" by Edward D. Hoch [one death]

47. "The Prosecutor of DuPrey" by David Vaughn [3 deaths]

48. "Death Takes the Funicular" by Gunnar Staalsen [2 deaths]

49. "Lord Peter's Last Case" by Stephen Murray [7 deaths]

50. "Intent to Kill" by Monica Quill [one death]

**********************

51. Bats in the Belfry by E.C.R. Lorac [6 deaths] (2/18/23)

52. Phi Beta Murder by C. S. Challinor [3 deaths] (2/20/22)

53. The Fear Sign by Margery Allingham [4 deaths] (2/22/23)

54. It Walks by Night by John Dickson Carr [4 deaths] (2/24/23)

55. The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie [5 deaths] (2/28/23)

56. The Moving Finger by Agatha Christie [6 deaths] (3/1/23)

57. Towards Zero by Agatha Christie [5 deaths] (3/5/23)

58. The Black Cat Murders by Karen Baugh Menuhin [11 deaths] (3/7/23)

59. The Woman in the Picture by John August (Bernard de Voto) [4 deaths] (3/10/23)

60. Sidney Chambers & the Perils of the Night by James Runcie [6 deaths] (3/11/23)

61. Dead, Mr. Mozart by Bernard Bastable [2 deaths] (3/15/23)

62. A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie [9 deaths] (3/17/23)

************************

The following stories are from Blood on the Tracks edited by Martin Edwards (3/20/23)

63. "The Man with the Watches" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [one death]

64. "The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel" by L.T. Meade & Robert Eustace [2 deaths]

65. "The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway" by Baroness Orczy [one death]

66. "The Case of Oscar Brodski" by R. Austin Freeman [one death]

67. "The Eighth Lamp" by Roy Vickers [one death]

68. "The Unsolved Mystery of the Man with No Face" by Dorothy L. Sayers [2 deaths]

69. "The Railway Carriage" by F. Tennyson Jesse [3 deaths]

70. "Mystery of the Slip-Coach" by Sapper [one death]

71. "The Level Crossing" by Freeman Wills Crofts [one death]

72. "Murder on the 7.16" by Michael Innes [one death]

*************************

73. Bony & the Kelly Gang by Arthur W. Upfield [8 deaths] (3/23/23)

74. Beyond by Theodore Sturgeon (2 stories = mystery-based) [5 deaths] (3/26/23)

75.