Two More Anthologies

As a passionate fan of short stories, I’m delighted to receive two new collections, edited by well-known men of mystery.

Paris Noir – the title speaks for itself – is put together by Maxim Jakubowski. Maxim owns Murder One, a great bookshop in the Charing Cross Road, but I first came across him through the Zomba Books omnibuses that he edited in the 1980s – they introduced me to wonderful writers such as Cornell Woolrich, Fredric Brown and David Goodis. Our first face to face encounter was when he acted as a Magnus Magnusson surrogate quiz-master at the World Mystery Convention in London in 1990. I was one of the contestants – an occasion I recall as vividly as yesterday.

Since then, Maxim has included a number of my own stories in books he has edited and each acceptance has given me a real frisson of pleasure, because this is a guy who is steeped in crime fiction, who knows everyone there is to know, and can pick and choose from the superstars. This new book includes contributions from the likes of John Harvey, Jason Starr and Stella Duffy..

Dead Man’s Hand is edited by Otto Penzler, another influential crime bookshop owner and expert on the genre. This time the unifying theme is poker. Contributors include Jeffrey Deaver, Alexander McCall Smith, Michael Connelly, and one of my long-time personal favourites, the brilliant Peter Robinson. Otto’s Mysterious Bookshop briefly had a presence in London, and Andrew Taylor and I once did a joint book-launch there. Shortly afterwards, the shop closed, but I don’t think this was directly attributable to Andrew or me….