Contents:
Introduction; The Man Who Knew How; The Girl
with the Silver Eyes; Red Wind; The Wench Is Dead; Gone Girl; The Couple Next
Door; By the Scruff of the Soul; A Poison That Leaves No Trace; Photo Finish;
The Crime of Miss Oyster Brown; Red Clay; Barking at Butterflies; Running Out
of Dog; Hostages; When the Women Come Out to Dance; Flowers That Bloom in the
Spring; Woodrow Wilsons Necktie; Loopy; Great Aunt Allies Fly Papers; First
Lead Gasser; Chee’s Witch; Breathe Deep; Rumpole and the Bubble Reputation; The
Hanged Man; The Holly and the Poison Ivy; Copycat; He Loved to Go for Drives
with His Father; Credits; Index.
Description:
Three-quarters of a century ago, Dorothy L.
Sayers compiled the classic anthology The Omnibus of Crime, a definitive
collection of short fiction that brought together crime and mystery works from
the Apocryphal Scriptures to whodunits from the 1920s.
Now, reflecting the
explosive developments in the genre, Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert
celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of that book's publication with A New
Omnibus of Crime.
Like Sayers's volume, this new book is envisioned as a
vehicle carrying stories the editors think represent the best in crime and
mystery writing in our time. Selections also reflect the tastes of Contributing
Editors Sue Grafton and Jeffery Deaver, both of whom have stories in this
volume.
The anthology begins with a story by Sayers herself; other giants of
the genre including Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, are also represented
among the twenty-seven works. Hillerman and Herbert introduce each story and
place each selection in the context of the literary history of the genre.
Several of the writers confide the circumstances and real-life happenings that
inspired them to write their stories. The book concludes with stories by
Jeffery Deaver, Alexander McCall Smith, and Catherine Aird – all in print for
the first time here.
While mystery writers in Sayer’s day shunned the love
interest as a distraction from a puzzling plot, some of these stories show how
the depiction of love – thwarted or otherwise – can effectively enrich crime
writing. In the last seven-plus decades, the use of a distinctly regional voice
has also revitalized the genre, as our selection of stories shows.
And while
Sayer’s contemporaries looked at crime as something that could be solved and
“tidied up,” writers here take the view that the effects of crime linger like a
stain even after a solution has been reached. Illustrating another more recent
trend, pets romp through these pages, some in surprising ways.
Like passengers
on an omnibus, the stories that keep company here are colorful and mixed. Some
will inspire laughter while others will incite chills. All will keep readers
turning the pages.
We invite you to hop on, take a ride, and get to know them.