FFB: Murder Intercontinental

Long before the current wave of crime fiction flooding in from all parts of the world, authors from countries outside the U.S. and the U.K. were writing stories and novels set in a variety of locales. Even in the two mystery-mainstay countries, American and British authors have often used exotic settings to inspire and entertain. One anthology that takes a look at this globe-hopping in crime fiction stories is Murder Intercontinental, published in 1996.

Editors Cynthia Manson and Kathleen Halligan culled their choices from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and decided on twenty authors with stories spanning seven continents taking place over the course of a century. The book starts off with "the Missing House" by Hayford Peirce, set in Tahiti (which the editors mistakenly label as being part of the Caribbean), in which a Kansas-born PI, who is scrounging a living in Tahiti, must find a house the owner swears was stolen. That's followed by geographical sections divided into North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Middle East, although some areas are only represented with one story.

There are well-known authors included: Agatha Christie's Poirot in Egypt, Ruth Rendell's Chief Inspector Wexford in London; Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret in a small French village. Others are less familiar, such as Kenneth Gavrell's P.I. Carlos Banon investigating a drive-by shooting linked to a senatorial candiate in Puerto Rico; Shizuko Natsuki's Lieutenant Soto investigating a bank robbery in a Japanese resort town he links to the suicide of a temple employee; and Josh Pachter's Mahboob Chaudri solving a crime on the Muslim holy day of Ramadan in Bahrain.

Even the settings in North America are more exotic, with Native American-themed tales from Manly Wade Wellman and William T. Lowe, and a haunting little story from James Sarafin titled "The Word for Breaking August Sky," set in a remote Eskimo village in Alaska and featuring an
African-American chief of police, that might best be described as lyrical paranormal noir (and was also later included in the 2002 anthology The Mysterious North, edited by Dana Stabenow).

Here are the regions with their various contributions:

The Caribbean : The Missing House / Hayford Peirce

North America : A Knife Between Brothers / Manly Wade Wellman; There are No Snakes in Hawaii / Juanita Sheridan; The Word for Breaking August Sky / James Sarafin; Corollary / Hughes Allison; Kaddish / Batya Swift Yasgur; All Indians are Warriors / William T. Lowe

Latin American : There are No Stars over San Juan / Kenneth Gavrell; The Hair of the Widow / Robert Somerlott

Asia : The Sole of the Foot / Shizuko Natsuki; The Courage of Akira-kun / Ron Butler

Africa : To Catch a Wizard / Walter Satterthwait

Eastern Europe : Hide-and-seek, Russian style / Patricia McGerr

Europe : Journey into Time / Georges Simenon; Who Killed that Son of a Doge? / David Braly ; Suspect / Patricia Highsmith; The Mists of Ballyclough / Barbara Callahan; Inspector Wexford and the Winchurch Affair / Ruth Rendell

The Middle East : The Adventure of the Egyptian tomb / Agatha Christie; The Night of Power / Josh Pachter

Comments

[Todd Mason]

They place Tahiti in the Carib? Good work...no snakes in Hawaii in part, these days, due to all the mongooses running about like carnivorous squirrels...a snake wouldn't last long if it got loose.

I do like these EQMMM/AHMM anthos, usually, as well...

[BV Lawson]

Well, I guess if it's a tropical destination, might as well call it the Caribbean, right? :-)

I enjoy these anthologies, too, because it's like going to a food tasting - you can try a little bit of this author (their work, not the author!) and a little bit of that author. I've discovered new favorites that way.

[Todd Mason]

That is definitely the strength of both anthologies and the fiction magazines...and the blending of the sibling titles often made for at least as strong a selection as individual magazine best-ofs might (at least one collaborative anthology between the same publishers's ASIMOV'S SF and ANALOG was the best book I've read out of either magazine since the most important years of ANALOG in its ASTOUNDING years). But those Dell anthem from AHMM and the Dannay selections from EQMM weren't to be sneezed at, either...

[Todd Mason]

Ah, the spell-correctors of Apple...putting in anthem sneakily when I wrote "anthos" and still yet trying to correct me...

[BV Lawson]

I'll have to look up the ASIMOV/ANALOG anthology - sounds good! Maybe I'll even get a story in one of these pubs, myself, some day. One can dream.

[Todd Mason]

ROADS NOT TAKEN: Tales of Alternate History edited by Gardner Dozois and Stanley Schmidt...and it dates from 1998...how the years fly...

I've managed to place a haiku in F&SF, and be mentioned in AHMM (Bill was kind enough to cite my blog in his EQMM column, too) but I might just have to get serious about putting some fiction into those, myself...