Murder by Magic: Twenty Tales of Crime and the Supernatural [Paperback]

Rosemary Edghill (Editor), Mercedes Lackey (Collaborator), Jennifer Roberson (Collaborator), Josepha Sherman (Collaborator), Diane Duane (Collaborator), Laura Anne Gilman (Collaborator), Keith R.A. DeCandido (Collaborator), Carole Nelson Douglas (Collaborator), Laura Resnick (Collaborator), Will Graham (Collaborator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2004

This anthology features 20 original stories of murder by acclaimed and award-winning science fiction and fantasy writers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although authors such as Randall Garrett in his acclaimed Lord Darcy series successfully melded whodunit plots with alternate universes where magic is real, few of the 20 supernatural mystery short stories in Edghill's all-original anthology rise above the mundane. Inspired contributions include Teresa Edgerton's "Captured in Silver," a nice ghostly locked-room murder tale, and Lillian Stewart Carl's "The Necromancer's Apprentice," which presents an interesting solution to the actual mystery surrounding the death of Amy Robsart, wife of Elizabeth I's favorite lord, balancing wizardry with astute deductions about the political motives of those who stood to benefit. The standout, James D. Macdonald's "A Tremble in the Air," introduces a psychic detective, Orville Nesbit, who's clearly heir to the tradition of such sleuths as Algernon Blackwood's John Silence and who deserves to live on in further tales. Unfortunately, most of the other stories rely on catchy gimmicks (e.g., a husband-and-wife sorcerer team based on Nick and Nora Charles in Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's "A Night at the Opera") rather than well-crafted puzzles. The jacket art—showing a white-bearded wizard gazing at a body outline on the flagstones of a foggy, gas-lit street—amusingly evokes the fantasy-crime blend.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Here's an interesting collection. These 20 stories, by names both big and small, feature otherwordly crimes and supernatural solutions. Carole Nelson Douglas writes about a stage magician who meets a real magician; Diane Duane introduces us to a detective who solve crimes with the help of the dead; Laura Resnick (in the delightfully titled "Dopplegangster") writes about mobsters who are dying after seeing someone who looks just like them. The stories plunge us deep into history and fling us far into the future. The fantasy elements may put off mystery fans of the never-mix, never-worry variety, but readers who don't mind mixing things up a little, crossing over genres and back again, should have a very good time indeed. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 345 pages
• Publisher: Aspect (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446679623
• ISBN-13: 978-0446679626
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #911,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily good anthology, September 6, 2006

By 

Elizabeth A. Root (Laurel, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Murder by Magic: Twenty Tales of Crime and the Supernatural (Paperback)

It is very rare that I am able to say that I enjoyed every story in an anthology, but that is the case for this volume. Many of the stories have a humorous quality, not so much laugh out loud as being pastiches of various mundane mystery and other genres.

There is a great diversity in the types of stories. The characterizations and story-telling are uniformly good to outstanding. The works tend to be set in somewhat feudal cultures, as fantasy usually is, but others are quite modern or otherwise set in familiar times and places (if you credit the existence of magic.)

Worth reading both for fantasy aficionados and mystery fans.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crime and the supernatural, July 13, 2009

By 

Chrijeff (Scranton, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Murder by Magic: Twenty Tales of Crime and the Supernatural (Paperback)

This highly enjoyable anthology contains 20 stories by some of the best-known authors in modern fantasy (almost all female), from Roberta Gellis to Mercedes Lackey, brought together by an editor who has worked with several of them (not to mention co-writing at least two novels with the late, great Andre Norton). Despite the title, not all of the tales turn on murder (or even crime), but most do; they range from the funny (Esther Friesner's "Au Purr," in which a witch takes the form of a cat in order to learn the truth about her sister's death and watch over her young niece and nephew) to the somewhat baffling (Carole Nelson Douglas's "Special Surprise Guest Appearance By...," in which an aging Vegas stage magician meets...I'm not sure what), to the classic locked-room (Debra Doyle's "A Death in the Working," set in her MageWorlds Universe). Anyone who enjoys puzzles and the fantastical should enjoy the collection. Highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Uneven but some real gems, August 30, 2010

By 

T. Dowd - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Murder by Magic: Twenty Tales of Crime and the Supernatural (Paperback)

This short story collection is a fun read, and had tales I hadn't expected from some authors I really like. Like all short story collections, some don't quite fit the overall theme very well. One story breaks one of the cardinal rules of mystery, that the mystery story was terribly incomplete, with no closure or capture. That tale plainly is part of a longer novel and was not long enough to either make a good mystery or introduce the world to new readers. Stories that combine the limitations of mysteries and fantasy are difficult to pull off, and the tale by Diane Duane and the homage by Lee and Miller are especially good.