Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Kent Anderson• Edna Buchanan
• Amanda Cross
• James Crumley
• Philip Friedman
• James W. Hall
• Ed McBain
• Michael Malone
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Shel Silverstein
• Eric van Lustbader
Her toenails were bloodred, her lips were blue in Edna Buchanan's "The Red Shoes," a riveting tale that takes us into the life of a foot fetishist who steps into the middle of a murder....What happens when a hard-nosed insurance investigator lights up a joint and sniffs out a case of arson? It's a tale that only Elmore Leonard could tell, in "Sparks."...Elizabeth George reaches into English history in "I, Richard," as an academic obsessed by a priceless artifact plots a deadly course of seduction--only to discover that fate is the most quixotic mistress of all.
From lethal spikes to fatal kisses, from mad dogs to battle-crazed Englishmen, here indeed is Murder and Obsession, in these and 12 other all-new stories from Anne Perry, Dennis Lehane, Eric van Lustbader and others. For these are the best of the best, America's favorite writers exploring a deliciously chilling subject: obsession at its most insidious.
From the Paperback edition.
Synopsis
Kent Anderson
• Edna Buchanan
• Amanda Cross
• James Crumley
• Philip Friedman
• James W. Hall
• Ed McBain
• Michael Malone
• Joyce Carol Oates
• Shel Silverstein
• Eric van Lustbader
Her toenails were bloodred, her lips were blue in Edna Buchanan's "The Red Shoes," a riveting tale that takes us into the life of a foot fetishist who steps into the middle of a murder....What happens when a hard-nosed insurance investigator lights up a joint and sniffs out a case of arson? It's a tale that only Elmore Leonard could tell, in "Sparks."...Elizabeth George reaches into English history in "I, Richard," as an academic obsessed by a priceless artifact plots a deadly course of seduction—only to discover that fate is the most quixotic mistress of all.
From lethal spikes to fatal kisses, from mad dogs to battle-crazed Englishmen, here indeed is Murder and Obsession, in these and 12 other all-new stories from Anne Perry, Dennis Lehane, Eric van Lustbader and others. For these are the best of the best, America's favorite writers exploring a deliciously chilling subject: obsession at its most insidious.
USA Today - Linda Mallon
Rarely is obsession such a wonderful thing. In Murder and Obsession, the result is delicious.
Editorials
Linda Mallon
Rarely is obsession such a wonderful thing. In Murder and Obsession, the result is delicious.— USA Today
Publishers Weekly -
Like his Murder for Love and Murder for Revenge, Penzler's latest collection features original stories (14, plus one reprint) by an all-star team. Most of the writers score solid hits but, unexpectedly, not Elmore Leonard. In "Sparks," Dutch seems to be going through the motions as a good-looking widow and an insurance claims investigator talk over the recent destruction of her overly insured house; Leonard even resorts to characterization through celebrity-branding: "Linda Fiorentino. That was who Robin looked like... Robin had the same effortless way about her.... " Ed McBain does better in his cute tale ("Barking at Butterflies") of a man whose plans to dispose of the dog he hates and to keep the woman he loves badly misfire. James W. Hall provides surprise in "Crack," when a Fulbright scholar peeping on his nubile neighbor sees more than he expected. In "The Vampire," Joyce Carol Oates waxes gothic, freezing a murder in progress to backtrack through a dying artist's last years with his manipulative mistress. And in the collection's only reprint, "The Mexican Pig Banquet," James Crumley has C.W. Sughrue laying low until a gang of thieves and their accomplice tap his usual weakness: a damsel in distress. Top marks go to Dennis Lehane; his "Running Out of Dog" manages a novel's worth of fine tension and nuanced characters as two childhood friends deal with loving the same woman in a small town after Vietnam. Elizabeth George, Anne Perry and Eric Van Lustbader are among the others contributing to this enjoyable collection. (Mar.) FYI: Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and the Mysterious Bookshop West in Los Angeles.Library Journal
As in his previous anthologies, e.g., Murder for Revenge (LJ 12/95), Penzler has commissioned some high-caliber talent (Elmore Leonard, Edna Buchanan). While not all of these 15 new short stories involve murder, the characters in each tale do cross the line of normal and moral behavior. Only one author, James Crumley, uses a series character. Others, like Amanda Cross, James W. Hall, and Eric Lustbader, take a break from their usual environments, as does Anne Perry in the accomplished "Heroes." Shel Silverstein dispenses Solomonic justice, Elizabeth George probes the Ricardian movement, and Philip Friedman, Dennis Lehane, and Ed McBain each explore, among other things, the sinister side of canine-human relations. Rounding out the collection are solid contributions from Kent Anderson, Michael Malone, and Joyce Carol Oates. With individual introductions from Penzler, this anthology has something for every crime reader.--Devon Thomas, Highland Twp. Lib., MIThe third entry in Penzler's themed series of new stories (Murder for Revenge, 1998, etc.) is doubly generous. Though there are only 15 stories, a few are long enough to send the page count through the roof. And the topic itself is so broad that almost any crime story could be shoehorned in (though you'd have to stretch to find much obsession in Elmore Leonard's arson investigation or much murder in Shel Silverstein's droll sex-offender anecdote). No other individual entry measures up to Joyce Carol Oates's "The Vampire," but two kinds of stories are especially rewarding: a handful that focus, well, obsessively on their compulsive subjects (Edna Buchanan's shoe fetishist, James W. Hall's voyeur, Elizabeth George's scheming modern champion of Richard III, Philip Friedman's and Ed McBain's city-dwellers who have diverse problems with dogs), and a pair of surprising, and surprisingly accomplished, wild-cards from regional specialists Dennis Lehane (who leaves Boston to vacation among some memorable southern lowlifes) and Michael Malone (whose path crosses Lehane's as he travels north for a closer look at homicide among New York's Four Hundred). Supporting performances by Kent Anderson, James Crumley, Anne Perry, and Amanda Cross make this an anthology with something for everyone. .