In Reference to Murder

Mystery Melange

The recipients of this year’s Silver Falchion Awards were handed out during the recent Killer Nashville convention in Tennessee. There were some two dozen categories of contestants, but the main crime fiction-related winners included Best Cozy: Murder in Third Position, by Lori Robbins; Best Historical: Murder at the Galliano Club, by Carmen Amato; Best Investigator: Dead Drop, by James L'Etoile; Best Mystery: The Bone Records, by Rich Zahradnik; Best Thriller: One of Us Is Dead, by Jeneva Rose. In addition, the winner of the Claymore Award for best unpublished manuscript was Francois Roberge – The Fixer by Les Edgerton.

The winners were announced for the 2023 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Founded in 1982 at San Jose State University in California, the competition challenges entrants to compose opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels. Of interest to crime fiction fans is the Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, which went to Daniel Bradford of Lexington, KY: "It was a sunny day in Los Angeles, hot and bright, and I was in my office, playing Mahjong against myself and losing, when she walked in, 120 pounds of dynamite, a blonde with legs that began at her ankles and ended in trouble." Julian Calvin of Atlanta, Georgia, won the Crime & Detective category for her offering, "The tall, slender seductress had Tom Pauley wrapped around her little finger, and she had James McGee hanging from a necklace, but the police were still waiting for the lab results to determine whose body parts she had used to make her earrings and that stunning tennis bracelet." You can read all the category winners and "dishonorable mentions" here.

Noir at the Bar returns Sept 24 at the Mandrake Bar in Los Angeles. Host Eric Beetner will be joined by authors Halley Sutton, Lawrence Allan, Amulya Malladi, Pamela Samuels Young, Howard Kaplan, Ilyn Welch, and more as they read from their work.

Crime Reads featured Karen Pierce, author of a new cookbook that looks at Agatha Christie's characters and their relationship to food (with recipes!).


This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "Queen's Hawker" by Rena J. Worley.

In the Q&A roundup, bestselling author Kathy Reichs spoke with The Globe and Mail about writing while working full time, forensic science and how her Temperance Brennan series might end; and crime writer Steve Cavanagh chatted with the Irish Examiner about his latest novel, Kill For Me, Kill For You, and the nature of revenge.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

A trailer was released for The Marsh King's Daughter, based on Karen Dionne's 2017 novel of the same name. The film stars Daisy Ridley playing Helena Pelletier, a woman who has long buried her past experience with her father, Jacob Holbrook, the notorious "Marsh King" (Ben Mendelsohn)—who kidnapped and held her mother and herself captive in the woods for twelve years in total isolation. When he reappears in her life decades later, presenting a very real threat, Helena must confront him in order to protect her family.

A trailer also dropped for Cat Person, based on Kristen Roupenian's viral 2017 short story. The adaptation follows a college student named Margot (played by Emilia Jones) as she meets an older man named Robert (Nicholas Braun). The two get together, things go badly, and the seemingly nice Robert quickly reveals he has a much uglier side. The film also stars Geraldine Viswanathan, Hope Davis, Fred Melamed, Liza Koshy, Michael Gandolfini, and Isabella Rossellini. Cat Person debuts in theatres on October 26.

TELEVISION/STREAMING

The BBC announced a new, four-part crime drama, In The Jetty, starring Jenna Coleman. Coleman plays rookie detective Ember Manning who must work out how a fire in a Lancashire holiday home connects to a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case and an illicit "love" triangle between a man in his twenties and two underage girls. But as Ember gets close to the truth, it threatens to destroy her life—forcing her to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about her past, present and the town she’s always called home.

The BBC also commissioned Virdee, a new detective series based on AA Dhand’s best-selling crime novels and starring Sacha Dhawan (Doctor Who). The series introduces Detective Harry Virdee (Dhawan), a Bradford cop disowned by his Sikh family for marrying Saima, who is Muslim. Harry struggles with the abandonment, constantly attempting to reunite with his family. With his personal life in chaos, he must hunt down a killer targeting the Asian community. When the murderer kidnaps a local MP’s daughter in Bradford and holds the entire city to ransom, Harry realizes that he is going to need the help of his brother-in-law Riaz, a drug kingpin who runs the largest cartel in the county. Pulled together in an alliance that could ruin them both, Harry must make a choice: save himself and his family or save his city.

Disney+ has set the cast for the UK psychological drama, Playdate, adapted from Alex Dahl’s bestselling novel of the same name. The series, directed by Eva Husson, stars Denise Gough, Holliday Grainger, Ambika Mod, Jim Sturgess, Bronagh Waugh, and Michael Workeye. The story centers on Elisa, whose world is turned upside down when her young daughter Lucia is kidnapped at a sleepover. Who is the mystery woman who took Lucia, and what secrets does she know about Elisa?

A new teaser-trailer was released for Bosch: Legacy Season 2, based on the novels by Michael Connelly, which returns to Amazon Freevee on October 20. The drama series’ second season finds Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver) working alongside Honey "Money" Chandler (Mimi Rogers) to track down a masked assailant who kidnapped his daughter, Maddie (Madison Lintz), before time runs out. But as the FBI scrutinizes the murder of businessman Carl Rogers (from Season 1) , Bosch and Chandler are placed under suspicion. Season 2 will see the return of Detective Robert "Crate" Moore (Gregory Scott Cummins), and Detective "Barrel" Johnson (Troy Evans), who join Bosch, Chandler, Maurice "Mo" Bassi (Stephen A. Chang), and Detective Reina Vasquez (Denise Sanchez) in the search to find Maddie.


PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Karin Slaughter stopped by Good Morning America to discuss her new Will Trent thriller, After That Night.

The Crime Cafe podcast featured Debbi Mack's interview with Verónica Gutiérrez, a former community organizer, civil rights attorney, and corporate executive turned crime writer. Her latest book is As You Look.

On Crime Time FM, Paul Burke reviewed the latest titles in crime fiction and one wild card pick; and authors Amanda Cassidy and Caro Ramsey discussed their new novels.

Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast republished an episode from 2021 that was originally released in two parts but is now all together as one. It features the mystery short story "Harvey and the Redhead" written by Debra H. Goldstein and read by actors Ariel Linn and Sean Hopper.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club featured Nancy Bush and her latest crime novel, The Camp.

On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed catching up on 2023 releases on their TBR ("To Be Read") piles.

The Pick Your Poison podcast delved into why people are intentionally poisoning themselves with frog poison.

Quote of the Week

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Nocturne by Ed McBain

Ed McBain (1926-2005) was the pen name of Salvatore Albert Lombino, who later legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952. The prolific output of McBain/Hunter included over 110 novels, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide, as well as numerous short stories and collections and a few plays and screenplays. He was the first American author to receive the Diamond Dagger, the highest award given by the British Crime Writers Association. He was also a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master and an Edgar Award recipient for his 2002 novel Money, Money, Money.  
 
His greatest success came with his 87th Precinct series, which began in 1956 with Cop Hater, made into a film in 1958. The series also served as the basis for a television show in the early 1960s, starring Robert Lansing, Gena Rowlands, Norman Fell, Ron Harper, and Gregory Walcott. The 87th Precinct books are set in New York City (going under the alias of Isola in the books) and pioneered many of the elements of police procedurals today such as using multiple plot lines and viewpoints and an ensemble cast.

The synopsis for Nocturne from 1997 (87th Precinct installment #48): In Isola, the hours between midnight and dawn are usually a quiet time. But for 87th Precinct detectives Carella and Hawes, the murder of an old woman makes the wee hours anything but peaceful—especially when they learn she was one of the greatest concert pianists of the century long vanished. Meanwhile 88th Precinct cop Fat Ollie Weeks has his own early morning nightmare: he's on the trail of three prep school boys and a crack dealer who spent the evening carving up a hooker.

This is a McBain procedural romp on one hand, with the usual cast of characters, as well as members of the 88th precinct chasing down the killers (as Publishers Weekly noted, "McBain serves up his usual mix of urban insights, terrible jokes, sex, violence and dialogue that crackles from every page"). There are the touches of whimsy, such as the recurring in-joke involving references to The Birds, "that movie that Alfred Hitchcock wrote," prompting corrections from Detective Steve Carella that "I don't think Hitchcock actually WROTE that..." (Ed McBain, as Evan Hunter, actually did write the screenplay for The Birds.) But there is also more explicit violence and graphic sexual language than is usual even in these gritty novels. Still, it's a good introduction to the 87th and McBain's procedural prowess, although Kirkus Reviews opined that in this exuberant installment, "the whole 87th gets upstaged by the 88th."

Mystery Melange

 

Scottish author Claire Wilson has won the inaugural Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers Prize for her debut novel, Five by Five. The prize, launched in 2022, aims to discover new writers from underrepresented backgrounds in publishing and focuses on a different genre each year, with the first year dedicated to crime fiction. Wilson, who works as an intelligence analyst in a Scottish prison, impressed the judges with her thriller which follows a protagonist on the trail of a corrupt prison officer who might be her lover. Wilson will receive a publishing contract with Penguin Michael Joseph, worth at least £10,000, and representation by the DHH Literary Agency. All shortlisted writers will also receive one-to-one editorial feedback and guidance from an editor or agent.

Noir at the Bar heads to Cleveland at the Music Box Supper Club on August 31 with drinks, dinner, and readings by crime fiction authors J.D. Belcher, Angela Crook, Miesha Wilson Headen, Dana McSwain, Susan Petrone, D.M. Pulley, Michael Ruhlman, Thrity Umrigar, and Abby L Vandiver. Following the readings, there will be a large book market so you can meet the authors, purchase their latest books, and get them signed.

In what is good news for the Irish Book Awards, An Post has extended its sponsorship for two more years. Now in its 18th year, the An Post Irish Book Awards celebrate and promote Irish writing to the widest range of readers possible, in various categories including the Irish Independent Crime Fiction Novel of the Year. A shortlist for the 2023 awards will be announced on October 19, with winners revealed on November 22 at The Convention Centre Dublin. The 2022 Crime Fiction Novel winner was Breaking Point by Edel Coffey.

Black Spring Press has announced the Black Spring Crime Series, which will be curated by Luca Veste (author of books including The Game and The Bone Keeper) and will comprise an initial run of 10 novels over the next 10 months. The first book in the series is A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands by serving FBI agent Zephaniah Sole, published in June, and the second will be The Scotsman by Rob McClure, out in September. Three more as-yet-unannounced books will be published by the end of 2023. Veste said of the series, which has been endorsed by Lee Child, Mark Billingham, Ian Rankin, and Val McDermid: "This is an incredibly exciting time to be involved with an independent press such as Black Spring. The vision we have is to release excellent novels that cover the wide variety we see in crime fiction. From police procedurals, to thrillers, to historical crimes, it is a privilege to be bringing these novels to a wider audience."

Mystery Readers Journal editor, Janet Rudolph, reported that due to an overwhelming number of articles, author essays, and reviews for the Animals in Mysteries theme, they are dividing the material into two issues (Volume 39: 3 & 4), the first of which will be out in October. This means that anyone who didn't send an article initially still has time to contribute to the second issue by sending in a submission by October 15. Mystery Fanfare has more information.

Harlem World profiled Rudolph John Chauncey Fisher (1897–1934), a physician and radiologist. But he also had a successful writing career, penning journal articles, short stories, and The Conjure Man Dies, dating from 1932, the first novel with a black detective as well as the first detective novel with only black characters (although Pauline Hopkins and John E. Bruce had serialized novels in journals prior).

From the truth is stranger than fiction department, a bizarre case in Australia has enthralled people all across the globe—involving mushroom poisoning, a series of deaths, a tearful interview and now reports of a past mystery illness.

This week's crime poem at the 5-2 Weekly is "The Crowbar" by Tom Barlow.

In the Q&A roundup, Lisa Haselton chatted with author Charlene Bell Dietz about her new historical mystery, The Flapper, the Impostor, and the Stalker; Writers Who Kill's E. B. Davis interviewed Barbara Ross about Hidden Beneath, the eleventh book in the Maine Clambake mystery series; and the Irish Times interviewed Andrea Carter about her legal background, writing advice, and why the Inishowen peninsula is so special.

Author R&R with Heather Dixon

After spending over a decade in the marketing and advertising industry as a copywriter, Heather Dixon began a freelance career writing for businesses, as well as writing content for top parenting sites such as Red Tricycle and Pregnant Chicken. Her writing has appeared in a number of established sites, including Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, Motherly, SavvyMom and others. She has appeared on CBC radio and in print in the Globe and Mail. She lives just outside of Toronto, Ontario with her husband, her three young daughters and her Bouvier, Zoey.

Her debut crime novel, Burlington, asks, "What happens to the mean girls when they grow up?" In Burlington, they become a clique of alpha moms at the gates of their children's posh elementary school that Mae Roberts only stumbles into when they decide to accept the new mom in their fancy suburban neighborhood. And everything seems peachy keen until Mae begins slipping more deeper into a world of odd dinner parties, secrets, and rumors of suicide attempts. It's only when one of the Riverpark moms disappears, and then another, that Mae must decide what's more important—fitting in or uncovering the truth. A fresh take on belonging, obsession, and schoolyard politics, Burlington is a suspenseful debut novel that explores the exclusive world of wealthy mothers and demonstrates how privilege can come at a devastating price.

Heather Dixon stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching the novel:

 

My debut novel could probably be best categorized as book club fiction with elements of suspense. It’s called Burlington and it’s about a mother who moves to a new neighborhood in search of a better life. Only, once there, she gets caught up in the drama and the lives of the rich and beautiful school moms. I’ve been told it definitely gives off Big Little Lies vibes, which is great because I love Liane Moriarty.

When it comes to research, my main way to prepare for writing a novel is to read books that I think might be in the same genre or cover similar themes. I know some writers can’t read similar books when drafting, but I find it inspiring. In this case, I read both thriller books and domestic suspense novels to help me get a feel for the plotting and pacing. I wanted to make sure I was writing a page-turning novel, so I went right to the source and read all I could.

Then, after getting through the first draft, I usually go online to find all the little details I might not know about the setting. For Burlington, I searched things like what kind of trees grow in Vermont, what their local newspaper is called, what the homes look like. I also love using Google Earth to get in close and get real pictures of specific things. My book is contemporary fiction, so it was fairly simple for me to find answers to my questions, because I didn’t need to know what trees grew in Vermont 30 or 40 years ago, for example.

The other thing I’ve found extremely helpful is to reach out to professionals and ask questions. For another book I was writing, I needed to know if a spouse could legally take all of their joint savings out of a certain account without needing approval from the other spouse. I asked to speak to a financial advisor who was more than willing to answer all my questions. In fact, I think he kind of wanted to be a character in the book! For Burlington, I knew of someone who used to live in Vermont, so I reached out to her to ask specific questions about the area. I sometimes worried about bothering people, but I’ve found that most people don’t mind answering questions at all, especially when it’s for a book.

For a while, I tried to stick with the “write what you know” advice, but I find that quite limiting. With a combination of both internet research, real images to look at, and help from experts or people living in the area, I’ve found you can paint a real and detailed picture, which is so important. Even if you don’t end up going into detail on the page about what kind of tree someone is walking past, I think it’s important for yourself to have the entire picture before you can start crafting the world around your characters.

 

You can learn more about Heather and her writing via her website and also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Burlington is now available via all major booksellers.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Vertical has snapped up North American rights to Miranda’s Victim, a courtroom drama starring Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), which had its world premiere as the opener for the 2023 Santa Barbara Film Festival and is slated for release on October 6th. Based on true events, the film tells the story of 18-year-old Trish Weir (Breslin), who in 1963 was kidnapped and sexually assaulted. After a voluntary confession, her assailant, Ernesto Miranda (Sebastian Quinn), is convicted. But the verdict is later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court since his confession was made without an attorney present. In the resulting retrial, a determined prosecutor (Luke Wilson) seeks to hold Miranda fully accountable, notwithstanding a rigorous defense from Miranda’s attorney (Ryan Phillippe). What follows is a legal proceeding that will forever change the nation’s justice system. Weir’s case notably resulted in the establishment of the Miranda rights afforded to criminal suspects taken in police custody, to ensure the admissibility of statements made during interrogation, as part of subsequent criminal proceedings.

Buffalo 8 picked up worldwide rights to Rule of Thirds, an indie thriller written by and starring Will Hirschfeld, which it plans to release this fall. Also starring Ashley Moore (I Know What You Did Last Summer), the film is directed by Patrick Flaherty (Dyad) and centers on a successful high-end fashion photographer (Hirschfeld), scouting a new model (Moore), who watches as their instant connection leads to dangerous consequences. Additional cast includes Jonathan Kowalsky, Darren Pettie, George Carroll, Deneen Tyler, Ron Yuan, and Twan Kuyper.

A trailer was released for Anatomy of a Fall, which won the Palme d’Or (and also the Palme Dog) at the Cannes Film Festival this past summer, and opens in the U.S. on October 13. The story centers on a woman (played by Sandra Hüller) who lives alone with her husband and young son in the French Alps. When her husband dies in the snow, seemingly from a fall, she goes from being a grieving widow to a prime suspect. Who can you trust—especially when the only "eyewitnesses" are the couple’s blind son and the dog?

TELEVISION/STREAMING

Nicola Walker returns for an all-new season of Annika, a police procedural that follows a marine homicide detective in Scotland. The six-episode season premieres Sunday, October 15 at 10/9c on Masterpiece on PBS. Walker stars as DI Annika Strandhed, the head of Glasgow’s Marine Homicide Unit who darts around on a speedboat when she’s not raising an unruly teenage daughter. Walker works alongside DS Michael McAndrews (Jamie Sives) along with DC Blair Ferguson (Katie Leung), who’s an expert in forensics, and DS Tyrone Clark (Ukweli Roach) who is a new cop at the station.

FX has set Tuesday, November 14 for the premiere of A Murder at the End of the World, the seven-episode limited series that stars Emma Corrin, Clive Owen, Harris Dickinson, and Brit Marling. The Disney-owned network earlier had pushed the date from its original August 29 slot to November due to the Hollywood strikes. Created by Marling and Zal Batmanglij, A Murder at the End of the World is set at the remote compound of a reclusive billionaire and stars Corrin as the amateur sleuth Darby Hart, a Gen Z tech-savvy hacker. Darby and eight other guests are invited by a reclusive billionaire (Owen) to participate in a retreat. When one of the other guests is found dead, Darby must use all of her skills to prove it was murder against a tide of competing interests and before the killer takes another life.

FX also announced that the fifth season of multi-award-winning series, Fargo, is returning at 10 p.m. Tuesday, November 21. The network unveiled first-look images from the new season and revealed more details on the plot of the Noah Hawley-created show (spawned from the Best Picture Oscar-nominated 1996 Coen Brothers movie). In the 10-episode drama, an unexpected series of events lands Dorothy "Dot" Lyon (Juno Temple) in hot water with the authorities and plunges this seemingly typical Midwestern housewife back into a life she thought she'd left behind. Jon Hamm also stars as North Dakota Sheriff Roy Tillman, who has been searching for Dot for a long time. A rancher, preacher and a constitutional lawman, Roy believes that he is the law and therefore above the law.

The BBC has announced the return of hit drama Showtrial, with a brand new cast and explosive murder investigation. The fictional drama, written and created by Ben Richards, stars BAFTA award-winner Adeel Akhtar, Nathalie Armin, and Michael Socha, and will once again center around a hotly contested criminal trial that divides the nation and takes place in the full glare of the media spotlight. When the high-profile climate activist, Marcus Calderwood, is left for dead in a violent hit and run, he uses his dying moments to identify his killer—an unnamed serving policeman. From the victim's last breath to the jury’s final verdict, Showtrial takes us into the worlds of the charismatic and cocky officer, Justin Mitchell (Michael Socha); Sam Gill (Adeel Akhtar), an anxious defense solicitor; and Leila Hassoun-Kenny (Nathalie Armin), a rigorous prosecutor leading the case against the accused. As public outrage reaches fever-pitch, Showtrial questions what happens when a trial is dominated by contentious issues and whether the truth is ever clear cut. Is a fair trial possible when tensions are riding so high?


PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO/AUDIO

Graham Hurley chatted with Crime Time FM's Paul Burke about his new war novel, The Blood of Others; the Spoils of War series; Operation Jubilee: the raid on Dieppe; re-imagining WWII and Stalin and Mountbatten; writing "ogres"; and coming over from TV documentaries.

In the latest episode of The Red Hot Chili Writers, thriller writer Simon Toyne discussed how to avoid wild animal attacks; the etymology of famous phrases; Hilda's Crime Weekend; and a crime writers rap battle in Bute, Scotland.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Book Club spoke with bestselling true crime author, John Glatt, about his book Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege and the Murdaugh Family Murders, a reconstruction of the rise of the prestigious Murdaugh family and the shocking double murder that led to the downfall of its patriarch, Alex Murdaugh.

On the latest episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine podcast, find out what happens when a photographer gets wrapped up in a murder case involving a very famous guitar and a sports memorabilia collector in "The Beano" by Floyd Sullivan, from the September/October 2021 issue.

Sunday Music Treat

August 25 will mark the birth anniversary of conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), who is featured in the upcoming film Maestro starring Bradley Cooper. Although best known as a composer for larger works such as Broadway musicals like West Side Story, Bernstein also wrote chamber music and solo pieces primarily (and unsurprisingly) for pianists. One such work is the short Non troppo presto, sometimes alternatively entitled Music for the Dance No. 1, dating from 1937. Although only a little over a minute and a half, the "perpetual motion" aspect of it might make it tricky for Scott Drayco with his injured arm, but here it is played masterfully by Leann Osterkamp:

 

Quote of the Week

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: Twelve Women Detective Stories

Oxford University Press put out a series of "twelve-themed" anthologies in the 1990s, including Twelve American Detective Stories (1997), Twelve English Detective Stories (1998), and Twelve American Crime Stories (1998). The only one devoted to female protagonists is Twelve Women Detective Stories, also published in 1988, and edited by Laura Marcus (of Birkbeck College, London), with assistance from Chris Willis. Interestingly, over half of the writers were male and date from the late 19th to early 20th centuries when women detectives came into fashion. The heroines in these stories range from a housekeeper to a secretary, and a pawn-broker in a seedy area of Victorian London to Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk of Scotland Yard.

Arranged in roughly chronological order, the stories included are

• W. S. Hayward's "The Mysterious Countess" (1864)
• Catherine Louisa Pirkis's "Drawn Daggers" (1893)
• Fergus Hume's "The First Customer and The Florentine Dante" (1897)
• Grant Allen's "The Adventure of the Cantankerous Old Lady" (1898)
• L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace's "Mr. Bovey's Unexpected Will" (1899)
• Baroness Orczy's "The Man in the Inverness Cape" (1910)
• Hugh C. Weir's "The Man with Nine Lives" (1914)
• Anna Katherine Greene's "An Intangible Clue" (1915)
• Arthur B. Reeve's "The Clairvoyants" (1916)
• F. Tennyson Jesse's "Lot's Wife" (1931)
• Gladys Mitchell's "A Light on Murder" (1950)
• Henry Cecil's "On Principle" (1948)

Many of these authors are unfamiliar to the average reader (and a few even to me), so this volume serves also as an introduction to their writing. As with all anthologies, the quality of the stories varies quite a bit, with the better stories toward the latter part of the book, including Baroness Orczy's "The Man in the Inverness Cape" (with Lady Molly of the Yard); F. Tennyson Jesse's "Lot's Wife," where her Frenchwoman detective Solange (who has psychic powers that enables her to sense evil) becomes entranced with another woman's beauty; Hugh C. Weir's "The Man with Nine Lives" about a poor devil who has survived eight attempts on his life until famous detective Madelyn Mack discovers there's more to his story than meets the eye; and Henry Cecil’s amusingly cynical "On Principle."

Other female-themed anthologies have superceded this one in quality and scope. But this is still an entertaining read and a good, if limited, overview to the types and styles of female protagonists penned before and during the two world wars.