A Deadly Dozen - Softcover

Phil Mann; Kris Neri; Jamie Wallace; Cory Newman; Nathan Walpow; Kate Thornton; Goy Toltl Kinman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966347323 ISBN 13: 9780966347326

Publisher: Uglytown Productions, 2000

Synopsis

Tales of Murder from Los Angeles.

The new mystery anthology featuring crime fiction from members of Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles. They're seedy or glamorous ... Hollywood or Malibu ... cool, enraged, or totally fed up--meet a collection of fascinating culprits plotting deadly deeds in this anthology of gripping crime fiction from a thrill-minded group of Los Angeles writers.

Includes "Sentence Imposed" by Kris Neri, "Wifely Duties" by Cory Newman, "Push Comes to Shove" by Nathan Walpow, "Fatal Tears" by Ekaterine Nikas, "Miss Parker & the Cutter-Sanborn Tables" by Gay Toltl Kinman, "Driven to Kill" by Jamie Wallace, "Touch of a Vanish'd Hand" by Phil Mann, "Ai Witness" by Kate Thornton, "Over My Shoulder" by Lisa Seidman, by "The Cats and Jammer" Gayle McGary, "Copycat" by Joan Myers, and "Midnight" by Dorothy Rellas.

What these mysteries are about:

To save a life, an athlete must take a treacherous trip through her past and confront her darkest fears in "Sentence Imposed."

A woman takes extra care in preparing the evening meal in "Wifely Duties."

A wrestler has bigger problems than whether to throw a match in "Push Comes to Shove."

Two sisters sip a bitter brew from their fine china tea cups in "Fatal Tears."

Two librarians-in-training use their expertise to solve a baffling murder in "Miss Parker & the Cutter-Sanborn Tables."

An attention-hungry sycophant is ... "Driven to Kill."

A wily East Coast mathematician takes up the challenge of solving the perfect West Coast murder in "Touch of a Vanish'd Hand."

There's another reason besides raw fish to visit a sushi bar in "Ai Witness."

A young girl takes drastic measures to stop a stalker in "Over My Shoulder."

In "The Cats and Jammer," a teenage detective finds a body--and too many suspects--in a Hollywood bungalow court.

In "Copycat," a practical joker turns up dead ... and with no end of suspects.

High stakes and high technology put two old friends at odds ... at "Midnight."

About this title

Review:

Sisters in Crime, an international consortium of women and men whose reason for being is the propagation and betterment of women who write mysteries, is at it again with A Deadly Dozen: Tales of Murder from Los Angeles, its third anthology (following 1997's Desserticide: Desserts to Die For and 1998's Murder by Thirteen) of largely female murder and mayhem. Within its 224 pages you'll find all of the blood, revenge, culprits, and calamities that you'd expect from such a collection, and most of it is fine indeed. The problem, of course, is that it's nearly impossible to limn such ditties; most of them, given their length, rely on surprise endings that dish up the mystery in a matter of paragraphs--without giving away their payload. Suffice it to say, however, that Jamie Wallace's genre-bending "Driven to Kill" is a 10-page well-I'll-be-darned; Phil Mann's "Touch of a Vanish'd Hand" deals nicely with the locked-room-mystery wheeze--complete with a rotund and vaguely European mathematics professor with a penchant for detection; and Lisa Seidman's Over My Shoulder will, in 16 pages, more thoroughly creep out your inner child than many a novel 20 times as long:

He was standing right next to the sofa bed. I could sense his shadow lying over me. I stayed frozen in place, my eyes glued shut.

He did nothing for a moment; I could tell he was just staring at me. I prayed he'd go back out the door; I prayed Mom would come home now.

But then he reached down, hands tugging at the afghan. I gripped the edge of the blanket and held on. Would he still believe I was asleep?

"It's just you and me, Susie. I'm not going to hurt you. I love you."

Shove a copy in your bag and keep it handy. A Deadly Dozen's sharpened points make a dandy weapon for killing time. --Michael Hudson

Review:

A perfect book for curling up in an overstuffed chair before a crackling fire, iron poker close at hand, just in case... -- ForeWord Magazine, August 2000

About this edition

• Publisher: Uglytown Productions
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0966347323
• ISBN 13: 9780966347326
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Susan B. Casmier, Aljean Harmetz, Cynthia Lawrence