Who Killed Father Christmas? - anthology number 50!

Tomorrow sees the publication of my 50th anthology of short mystery stories, Who Killed Father Christmas? You guessed, it's another seasonal collection in the British Library Crime Classics series and I'm truly delighted to notch up my half-century. (Assuming I've counted correctly, which can't be taken for granted! There has also been, by the way, a collection of non-fiction essays about true crime).

I've loved short mystery anthologies since receiving a CWA collection for Christmas back in the late 60s. I never imagined then that I'd edit one myself, let alone so many - my dream at that point was simply to write short stories as well as novels. But having begun with Northern Blood, a book of stories by northern CWA members, one thing led to another. It's been an enormous pleasure to be the first to receive manuscripts of brand new stories from talented authors, famous and not so famous (an experience I'm currently enjoying with two anthos that are currently in the course of compilation) while it's also fun to discover or rediscover tales that fit in with a specific Crime Classics theme.

The majority of the 50 collections have been edited on behalf of either the CWA or the British Library, but there have been some other fun projects along the way, including Ten Year Stretch for CrimeFest and Motives for Murder for the Detection Club, as well as a number of Murder Squad books. Publishers tend to be dubious about anthologies, but they can sell well if correctly marketed. The themed Crime Classics anthologies have been enormously popular, with terrific sales to match glowing reviews, and I'm currently researching two more potential collections for next year.

Who Killed Father Christmas? has a title story written by Patricia Moyes. It's a title I love and although it's been used before, for a Moyes collection under the Crippen & Landru imprint, Doug Greene and Jeff Marks were very happy for me to use it, which I appreciate. There are some lovely stories in this one, and I'm especially pleased with my discovery of a very obscure tale by Glyn Daniel. As ever, there's a mix of well-known authors and those whose reputations have faded. I'm hopeful that plenty of people are going to find that it makes an excellent Christmas present - and I think that anthology number 50 bears comparison with the best of its predecessors.