Poison Them with Love

These holiday seasons seem just as much about food and sitting down with family and friends as they are about gifts or any religious significance.

As I looked at my bounty of treats that included a metric ton of Christmas chocolate and even an authentic Jamaican Rum Cake baked by a friend from her grandmother’s recipe, my thoughts turned, as they are wont, to murder weapons. Specifically, poison.

We live in a world where most of us either have food intolerances or know someone who does. A party is impossible without contingencies for the gluten free, dairy free, meat free, wheat free, soy free, nut, egg, additives, shellfish, etc., etc. free. Allergies pop up out of nowhere and a friend who could drink a particular concoction just a month ago, breaks out in hives from the same drink today.

In other words, it’s a bonanza for crime fiction.

I can think of many ways my characters might dispatch an enemy, all with a smile and a gift box of goodies. But I won’t list them here, ’cause, you know. Don’t want to give any of you ghoulies any unwholesome ideas.

What’s your favorite poisoned mystery?

Miss Demeanors

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Emilya Naymark is the author of the novels Hide in Place and Behind the Lie.
Her short stories appear in the Bouchercon 2023 Anthology, A Stranger Comes to Town: edited by Michael Koryta, Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, and 1+30: THE BEST OF MYSTORY.

When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of psychological thrillers, suspense, and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

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