JOHN CREASEY'S CRIME COLLECTION 1990

The best of the assorted yearly stow volumes offers one imaginative frame-up (Julian Symons's ""Waiting for Mr. McGregor""); two war stories (Peter Lovesey's final Comeuppance for a loser, and Mike Ripley's plight of a brewery); two identity mixups (involving Antonia Fraser's errant husband's mistress, and Basil Copper's traveling salesman); five tales of retribution (the ultimate in landlord/tenant relations by Michael Gilbert; a debacle in the bathtub, from the droll George Sims; a bad lie for a member of a golf club, from Judy Chard; a husband-killer from Margaret Yorke; and a scheming copper from lan Stuart); three family difficulties (Glyn Hardwicke's brother-bashing; editor Harris's brother-sister poker party; and Tony Wilmot's abusive wife); one confessional (an overlong mental-aberration story by Peter Godfrey); and two joyous standouts: H.R.F. Keating's bit of classic detection from a char at the British Museum, and Jean McConnell's ""Last Post,"" a chilling creative bit of blackmailing. Lively, clever, and, above all, literate.