Murder and Obsession: 12 New Original Stories - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385318006 ISBN 13: 9780385318006

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 1999

Synopsis

From lethal spikes to fatal kisses, from mad dogs to battle-crazed Englishmen, here indeed is Murder and Obsession, a star-studded collection of previously unpublished short mysteries.  In the wickedly entertaining tradition of his acclaimed collections Murder for Love and Murder for Revenge, award-winning editor Otto Penzler has once again gathered the best of the best, fifteen bestselling authors who dare to explore a deliciously chilling subject: obsession at its most insidious.

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 an alcoholic-turned-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." Then there's "Slow Burn," Eric Van Lustbader's gripping story of a beautiful detective torn among obsessions--a past injustice, a consuming passion, and a savage crime that links them both.  

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.  But "Barking at Butterflies" is a story straight out of today's headlines: Ed McBain's tale of a man who goes barking mad when a yappy Maltese takes over his life.  Can the devil make you do it?  Joyce Carol Oates has the answer as she plumbs the darkest recesses of possession in "The Vampire."

A paranoid cop smokes out an unseen perpetrator... a minor annoyance mushrooms into a major crime... an aging voyeur is lured into self-destruction by a teenage temptress seen through a crack in the wall... It's a devil's brew of Murder and Obsession in nine more mesmerizing stories by Kent Anderson, Amanda Cross, James Crumley, Philip Friedman, James W. Hall, Dennis Lehane, Michael Malone, Anne Perry, and Shel Silverstein, America's favorite writers exploring the depths of obsession--for the height of bone-chilling fun.

About this title

Review

Anyone who is old enough to remember what great fun it was to crack open a brand-new magazine (from Black Mask to Collier's) and discover two or three excellent stories by your favorite writers will beam with pleasure at Otto Penzler's Murder and Obsession. As in his two previous volumes of original stories (Murder for Revenge and Murder for Love), Penzler knows how to pick a wide and deep variety of writers and then coax them into producing their best work.

In "Burglary in Progress," Kent Anderson brings back his errant hero Hanson from Sympathy for the Devil and Night Dogs for a short but spectacular burst of urban angst. James Crumley's C.W. Sughrue, last seen in The Mexican Tree Duck, explodes again in a story called "The Mexican Pig Bandit." But most of the writers, from Edna Buchanan and James W. Hall to Ed McBain and Anne Perry, use the occasion to leave their series characters far behind (especially Dennis Lehane, whose absolutely riveting "Running Out of Dog" is as full of meat as most full-length novels). --Dick Adler

From the Publisher

6 cds

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0385318006
• ISBN 13: 9780385318006
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 406
• Editor: Otto Penzler