"Unlike a recording of opera excerpts, this collection doesn't provide enough highlights from artists who've mostly done their far better work elsewhere."
As even the perfect Wagnerite knows, it's not easy to tell a compelling story while providing great music, and atmosphere prevails over mystery-mongering in most of these 15 stories (194793) chosen by Manson and Halligan (Murder Intercontinental, 1996).
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"A relaxing Cook's tour that doesn't ask too much either of you or the authors assembled."
Exoticism is the keynote in this crop of 20 stories (192396) reprinted from Ellery Queen's and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazines.
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"One complaint: Such familiar fare ought to show a stronger editorial hand than veteran anthologists Manson (Murder by the Book, 1995; Kingpins, 1992, etc.) and Scarborough display here."
"Still, the literary connection puts this collection a cut above Manson's recent Murder Most Medical (p. 903), coedited with Cathleen Jordan."
Nineteen reprints, 1906-93, giving pride of place to books (Idylls of the King, Great Expectations, Treasure Island, etc.) or fictional authors.
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"Truth in labeling, then: The title should be Murder Almost Medical."
Fifteen reprints dating from the venerable past (Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, Michael Innes) to the other day (Ashley Curtis, John Mortimer, Arthur Porges).
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"An average collection at best, no better or worse than a regular issue of either magazine."
Seventeen stories from the pages of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock magazines, none of them particularly memorable and most not especially relevant to the collection's purported theme— showing the inner workings of organized crime.
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"Mostly one more attempt to cash in on the burgeoning women-in- mystery market and, considering the names involved, a surprisingly amateurish compilation."
Fifteen stories reprinted from either Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, each written by a woman and featuring a woman heroine, who, all too frequently, is either rescued by a man—Patricia McGeer's kidnapping in Israel; Elizabeth A. Dalton's wife-beating husband; Dorothy Salisbury Davis's date from hell; Anne Perry's disruptive, 1894-set house- party—or perkily demanding to be taken as seriously as a man— Janet Stockey's good-cop/bad-cop scenario; B.K. Stevens's novice p.i.
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Excellent sheaf of sf reprints (plus three originals) all turning on crime and detection in the future, a truly intriguing premise.
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