Another Deadly Year

I can’t think of another annual anthology of crime stories that supplies as much sheer reading pleasure, plus as much important information, as the one which editors Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg lay upon us like a golden egg at the end of every year.

Their 2006 door-stopper, The Deadly Bride, is 576 pages of surveys by Jon L. Breen, Edward D. Hoch, and ace blogger Sarah Weinman (who analyzes and chooses the best of online crime, but sadly doesn’t have one of her own sharp print offerings in the book).

What stories are here are topnotch, from Sharan Newman’s “The Deadly Bride” (which of course loans the book its title) through excellent offerings by James Hall, Nancy Pickard (her The Virgin of Small Plains was one of my own best books of 2006), David Morrell, Rick Morfina, Robert S. Levinson, Jeremiah Healy, Anne Perry--the list is endlessly readable.