A New Omnibus of Crime

Although I really like mystery and crime movies, I'm not a great reader of detective fiction. I did go through a phase of reading serie noir books by the likes of Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler and, although I have read some novels by Elmore Leonard and other contemporary crime novelists, I'm not really up to date with detective fiction. I'm also not a voracious reader of short stories and my experience of the medium is limited to Stephen King and Philip K. Dick. It was therefore with a great deal of interest that I began to read A New Omnibus of Crime as I would like to read more detective fiction that really wouldn't know where to start.

Based on the crime novels I've read, I was a little sceptical as to how well the format would work in short stories as the best novels tend to be those that develop the characters, locations and possible motives with the greatest detail so you identify with the protagonist -- usually a private investigator -- and follow his travails whilst finding out who killed someone and why.

I needn't have worried as the authors here are all immensely skilled writers who know how to grab your attention and work a narrative into an extremely small amount of works, sometimes just spreading a few pages. The book is edited by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert, with Sue Grafton and Jeffrey Deaver as contributing editors and they all clearly know their stuff, providing a fascinating introduction to each story which tells you about the author and, in a couple of cases, continues after the story so as not to spoil the tale. Hillerman is a published writer and has a couple of his short stories in this omnibus so he is both editor and contributor.

Another concern was that the stories could get a little 'samey' and formulaic, beginning with a corpse and a PI and ending with the guilty party in handcuffs but Hillerman and Herbert have done a terrific job in selecting stories spanning the past 50 years so that you get some 'hard-boiled' detective fiction by Dashiell Hammett, some period fiction from Dorothy Salisbury Davis and a wonderfully macabre tale by Patricia Highsmith. It is incredible that out of the 26 short stories, no two are alike and those that are fans of detective fiction will find themselves making a shopping list as they work their way through this anthology either of books they haven't read or authors they hadn't previously come across. Perhaps the most well-known of the writers come back to back, with Ruth Rendell following Patricia Highsmith and preceding P. D. James -- how's that for a triple bill?! If that weren't enough, you get a terrific Rumpole story by John Mortimer, a great Scottish-based story by Ian Rankin and a fascinating piece by Jeffrey Deaver.

I actually read this quite slowly, reading a couple of stories every day, three if they were particularly short, but could easily imagine going through the entire book in a couple of days. The release date (August 2nd) is particularly pertinent as this would make for terrific holiday reading and is a perfect book to have with you on the beach or poolside so you can spend between five and twenty minutes reading a story or two, go for a swim or a walk and then returned to the book for another short stint before going for a drink or a meal. The full list of authors is below so if you like any of them, you would like at least 90% of this book which comes highly recommended.

Authors:
Dorothy L Sayers, Dashiell Hammett, Frederic Brown, Ross Macdonald, Margaret Millar, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Julian Symons, Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James, Tony Hillerman, Donald E. Westlake, Jon Mortimer, Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Peter Lovesey, Michael Malone, Ed McBain, Dennis Lehane, James Crumley, Elmore Leonard, Ian Rankin, Catherine Aird, Jeffrey Deaver and Alexander McCall Smith.