Title: The Perfect Crime
Author: Various
Editors: Maxim Jakubowski and Vaseem Khan
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Synopsis:
Around the world in 22 murders…
MURDER
BLACKMAIL
REVENGE
From Lagos to Mexico City, Australia to the Caribbean, Toronto to Los Angeles, Darjeeling to rural New Zealand, London to New York – twenty-two bestselling crime writers from diverse cultures come together from across the world in a razor sharp and deliciously sinister collection of crime stories.Featuring Oyinkan Braithwaite, Abir Mukherjee, S.A. Cosby, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, J.P. Pomare, Sheena Kamal, Vaseem Khan, Sulari Gentill, Nelson George, Rachel Howzell Hall, John Vercher, Sanjida Kay, Amer Anwar, Henry Chang, Nadine Matheson, Mike Phillips, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Felicia Yap, Thomas King, Imran Mahmood, David Heska Wanbli Weiden and Walter Mosley.
My review:
The Perfect Crime is a brilliantly curated collection of short stories that take us around the world, to different countries and communities, but all with a common thread – CRIME!
The 22 authors in this collection might be less mainstream or ‘well known’ than in some of the other anthologies edited by Jakubowski, but that perfectly highlights the point of this collection – to celebrate diversity in crime writing and avoid always highlighting the same authors over and over again. I recognised a few names in this collection – Sanjida Kay, Vaseem Khan (who edited the collection along with Maxim Jakubowski) and Imran Mahmood – so got to discover lots of great new authors, which I was thrilled about.
As expected, the stories are very varied – some are much grittier than others, some make for really uncomfortable reading (for a range of reasons) and some are surprisingly humorous (in a dark and twisted way!)! Unsurprisingly, I preferred over others, but all of them had their own unique style, twist or intrigue to them. A selection of my favourites are Death in Darjeeling, A Murder of Brides, Jumping Ship, Clout Chaser, The Beautiful Game, Quiet Night In and The Yellow Line – in fact, I enjoyed pretty much all of them. Such a good mix!
I don’t think anyone will be disappointed at the standard of stories in this collection, and its focus on promoting authors from diverse backgrounds is brilliant.
My rating: 4.5/5
Many thanks to the publisher, HarperCollins UK, for providing a copy of this book on which I chose to write an honest review.