Customer Reviews

A New Omnibus of Crime

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An unbeatable combination: Excellent mystery stories with varied flavors all packed into one beautiful hardbound book. Wish it was Christmas! Men and Women authors are well represented, both male and female protagonists are featured. The collection features all my favorite crime genres: The slick thriller, the tranquil suburban shudder, the whodunnit as well as my favorite PIs. Here is detective fiction at its best, lovingly packaged and presented. Go forth and enjoy!

Three-quarters of a century ago, Dorothy L. Sayers, the doyenne of mystery writers, assembled an anthology of work by her peers that provided an overview of the genre in 1928.

Now, Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert have followed suit in providing a new anthology which seeks to do the same for mystery writing in the modern era.

Whether they have succeeded in providing a gathering equivalent to that of Miss Sayers may depend as much on personal taste of the reader as on the quality of the assembled works. That they have gathered an impressive collection of works by writers from the 1930s to the present goes without saying. The collection also illustrates the changes which have taken place in style, characterization and attitude.

The anthology begins with a gem of a story by Miss Sayers and concludes with a charming little piece written by Alexander McCall Smith especially for this volume. Hillerman, himself, is represented with two stories. There are tales by many familiar names and I was pleased to be introduced to a few writers new to me who will now be added to my reading list.

This is a volume worthy of any mystery-lover's bookshelf.

Title says it all. I especially enjoyed seeing how the conventions of the genre have changed over the years, and was pleased at how well represented women writers were. Not a dud in the book, but lots of variety, and new authors to check out.

In 1928 the well-known writer of criminal detection, Dorothy Sayers, edited a collection of short stories that summarized the state of detective mystery writing. The present work, edited by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert, "A New Omnibus of Crime," can be viewed as an updating of the short story omnibus by Sayers. Each story of this version is prefaced by an introduction to the author, including a list of the author's main publications. This book in hardback is attractive with the following quotation by Robert B. Parker on the front cover: "...essential for anyone with more than a passing interest in detective fiction. Brilliantly assembled, and beautifully edited by people who know what they're doing."

The impetus in the earlier version was more on plot than on characterization, whereas the present book reverses this stress, although plot is not neglected. This volume start off in high fashion with stories by luminaries such as Dorothy Sayers, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler.It also contains works by highly successful present day writers such as Ed McBain and Elmore Leonard. Writers less well-known to the reader will be found interesting and imaginative. One of the nice features of this collection is the great variety of genres, settings, diabolical twists, and character developments shown in the stories.