My collection of short mysteries, THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, is available for little or nothing at several online book retailers, including Amazon.com, Smashwords.com, BooksOnBoard.com, MobiPocket.com, and LuLu.com. Just search on “Mambretti.” (Prices range from $3.99 for MobiPocket editions to $0.99 for the Kindle edition to $0.00 at Smashwords and Lulu in PDF and most other file formats. Most are printable—if you absolutely must kill a tree to read them.)

They are short stories. That means they’re short enough to read on a cell phone or Blackberry.

Eight Suspicious Deaths, Bizarre Murders, Strange Murderers—almost all with a touch of hope in the end:

• One murder by mastiff
• One murder by wine
• One murder by icicle
• One madwoman sold to a traveling, railroad brothel in the Old West
• One pre-DNA blood-factor whodunit
• Two near-perfect murders by someone who knows forensics
• One murder by nightmare