The Hit List: Top 5 Favorite Mystery Short-Shorts

When patching together one of these lists, I always try to avoid the usual topic and opt for something slightly less obvious and original, "Top 10 Works of Detective Fiction Lost to History," "Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance" and "Top 10 None-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated," unless there's a good reason – like the 10th anniversary of the Rue Morgue Press shutting down. This time, I wanted to do a short story list, but not a basic list of favorite short stories or make it thinly-disguised locked room list.So was considering starting working on a Halloween-themed list or do a part 2 of "Top 10 Favorite Hybrid Mysteries," when I got an idea. Why not do a short list of short-shorts?The short-short detective story has admittedly not produced many classic or memorable examples, because it's tricky to setup and execute a good, satisfying detective story in 3-6 pages. So the short-short detective story is not the perfect vehicle to write a stunning and…