Crime in the City by
Martin Edwards ed
hbk out November 02
Published by Do Not Press
at £15
The immediate images formed by the phrase `crime in the city'
are probably of Manchester car thieves and London muggers. Thankfully,
the authors of this volume avoid such stereotypes. Instead, they offer
everything from unintentionally-humorous criminals based in Welwyn
Garden City to a doomed lesbian love affair set in Russia's St
Petersburg.
Martin Edwards effectively introduces each story, giving a
brief overview of the author's career and his or her crime writing
interests. He also notes how many writers have played against type. For
example, Andrew Taylor is well known for his realistic modern and
historical novels but here he produces a first class short story by a
surreal, if entirely reliable, narrator. The story is set in a very
active cemetery and grabs the reader from the first line to the last.
Meanwhile, Jerry Sykes sets his equally atmospheric tale against
the backdrop of Austin, Texas. Is Dennis, a policeman who is so empathic
that he shares his wife's period pains, all that he seems? Several of
the other stories are also set in American cities and two of them refer
to the day that the twin towers were destroyed.
Not that British settings are ignored. My story, about a rent
boy who encounters a very unusual client, is set in Edinburgh's Holyrood
Park and other stories range from Manchester to Bangor to Newcastle.
Twenty of the stories were specially commissioned for this
volume, but the two reprints are equally fine. The refreshingly funny
Reg Hill offers a story based on the premise that every man wants at
some time to kill his wife. (No wonder so many women are remaining
single.) And Ruth Rendell produces an effective story where history
repeats itself - but is history, as seen from an abducted child's
viewpoint, what it seems?
In real life crime in the city is declining - but this anthology
definitely deserves to thrive.
