100 Crooked Little Crime Stories, edited by Dziemianowicz, Weinberg, and Greenberg

This was a pretty good grouping of crime stories. My favorite two were both extremely clever; Ferry Slip by Don James had a gas station attendant in the boonies trap a car full of armed bank robbers, and A Valentine From Teacher by Jim Knapp has the perfect crime solved without anyone knowing whom the investigator really was. New Blood by Gary Lovisi was another gem, where hunted nurses dole out a unique justice. Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart is another of my favorites included here, although along with Always Together by Allen Beck seems closer in theme to 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories than this volume.

There weren’t really any terrible stories here, although several were a bit pedestrian. One unfortunate bit of editing was Curt Hamlin’s All Sewed Up! and The Crimson Complex by G. Fleming-Roberts being just a few chapters apart; they both keyed on red-green blindness as a gimmick and could have used a lot more space between them. Overall though, a nice collection of short stories.

First Sentence (From the introduction):

How long does it take to plot and commit a serious crime?

100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories, edited by Dziemianowicz, Weinberg, and Greenberg

I’ve always liked ghost stories, but this collection was largely pedestrian and disappointing. Coming Home by Nina Kiriki Hoffman was one of the only truly unnerving stories, dealing with the ghosts of guilt instead of the more traditional apparitions. O Come Little Children... by Chet Williamson was my other favorite; the twist at the end of this one truly snuck up on me, and with most of the other stories being so predictable this was doubly surprising. While one or two tales are worthy of being told around the campfire, the vast majority are easily forgettable.

First Sentence (from the introduction):

The ghost story is the oldest type of supernatural tale, and thus the one closest to the European oral storytelling tradition.