John M. Floyd’s mystery short-story collection “River Road And Other Mystery Stories” (Crippen and Landru, 2025) features seventeen enthralling mysteries, mostly of the Ellery Queen/Edward D. Hoch variety, meaning fairly-clued whodunit puzzle stories, more often than not featuring Southern settings (John Floyd is a Mississippi writer after all.) and realistic characters.

Floyd’s detectives are appealing; Sheriff Ray Douglas operates in a very finely drawn locale: Pine County, Mississippi. Private Eye Tom Langford’s setting is a bit more urban. Both of them are aided and abetted by female allies; Sheriff Douglas’ “sometimes girlfriend” Jennifer Parker and Langford’s fiancee Debra Jo (D.J.) Wells. Characterizations, of our main characters especially, feel real, human and identifiable with the sort of people the reader would know.

Floyd’s locations are perfectly described; readers can see, hear smell and feel the dusty roads, country stores and other places his detectives explore and crimes occur.

Floyd’s descriptions and dialogue are masterful and a lot of fun to read:

Workwise. I try to stay on the correct side of the blurry line between

right and wrong, and I am neither well known nor powerful…

And

She was one of those folks who could probably assemble a parachute

within thirty seconds and give you all the specifics on air density and

rate of descent, and then forget to put it on before she jumped out of the plane…

After two groupings of stories featuring Douglas and Langford, the final grouping of stories in the book takes readers to locales as varied as Wyoming, Arizona and even the Wild West of an earlier century.

In short, John Floyd’s “River Road” is an entertaining collection (actually Floyd’s seventh collection of short-stories), and a must-have for any mystery reader.

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Here’s a link to the Crippen and Landru website: https://crippen-and-landru.myshopify.com/products/river-road-and-other-mystery-stories