BROUGHT TO BOOK

Or “intrepid women take on the literary establishment,” as you—d expect from the imprint on this collection of 15 mostly new stories (three date back to 1994). Within this imperative, the contributors find surprising variety, though there’s no shortage of males to oppress female editors (Barbara Paul and Dale Gunthorp), translators (Barbara Wilson), printers (Margaret Wilkinson), and sales reps (Joan M. Drury). More typically, women writers struggle to balance the identities they can achieve through writing with the politics of wrestling for power in the world of publishing. The few stories of straight detection are undistinguished, and most of the others are calculated to make male readers” ears burn. But the target audience will be delighted with the grave playfulness of Susan Dunlap’s murderous tontine, the shape-shifting of Stella Duffy’s and Robyn Vinten’s metafictions, the dishy faux revelations of Christina Lee’s vampirish parasite, and the changes resourceful editor Sumner (Crosswords, 1995, etc.) rings on the hysterical female stalker. Brightly entertaining sociology-cum-bonding masquerading as crime fiction.