Being a magazine devoted to the genre, all stories must be mysteries, one way or another, for the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine although ghost or supernatural stories are occasionally accepted, providing they involve a crime. Other than this, all kinds of stories are of interest including whodunits, detections of the classic kind, police procedurals, private eye and espionage tales and courtroom dramas. Stories based on actual crimes or real life events are not wanted.
Since its inception in 1956 the magazine has grown to become one of the world’s leading mystery magazines and in 2015 published 79 short stories covering all the subgenres of mystery fiction, in tones ranging from the humorous to the ironic and tragic. The stories were written by writers from around the world and involved a similarly wide range of settings.