#BlogTour ‘ The CWA book of Vintage Crime’ edited by Martin Edwards

About the book…

Vintage Crimes will be a CWA anthology with a difference, celebrating members’ work over the years. The book will gather stories from the mid1950s until the twentyfirst century by great names of the past, great names of the present together with afew hidden treasures by less familiar writers.

The first CWA anthology, Butcher’s Dozen,appeared in 1956,and was co-edited
byJulian Symons, Michael Gilbert,and Josephine Bell. The anthology has
been edited by Martin Edwards since 1996,and has yielded many awardwinning and nominated stories in the UK and overseas.

This new edition includes an array of incredible and award-winning authors:
Robert Barnard, Simon Brett, Liza Cody, Mat Coward, John Dickson Carr, Marjorie Eccles, Martin Edwards, Kate Ellis, Anthea Fraser, Celia Fremlin, Frances Fyfield, Michael Gilbert, Paula Gosling,Lesley Grant-Adamson, HRF Keating, Bill Knox, Peter Lovesey, Mick
Herron, Michael Z. Lewin, Susan Moody, Julian Symons and Andrew Taylor.

My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for the blogtour invite, and publishers Flame Tree Press for my gifted review copy of ‘Vintage Crime’

As with most collections, there are some stories which are going to hit their mark and others which make you scratch your head, and this one is no exception.

The oldest story in the book is from 1964, the newest, 2008, so it is fair to say that they have been gathered far and wide. The temptation, with a collection labelled ‘vintage’, is to assume outdated and possibly old fashioned, and, certainly, I found some of the terms and attitudes expressed by the writers as such.

Covering cold cases, lover’s tiffs which end in murder, crimes of opportunity,revenge and greed, this is a good collection although I have to say that diversity amongst the writers is lacking. This is in the respect of being representative (possibly)of the CWA, and being overtly ‘white’ in nature, and predominantly English.

There are gems which stuck out, such as Mick Herron’s ‘All She Wrote’,Celia Fremlin’s ‘The Woman Who Had Everything’ and Kate Ellis’ ‘Top Deck’.

The rest of the collection, which has all been published elsewhere, fit together quite neatly, but those three in particular made a lasting impression.

Out of 22 stories, 9 are written by women, and each author has a helpful biography at the back of the collection to direct the curious reader to other works.

Not all the names may be immediately familiar to the reader, so this is a good opportunity to have, if you will, a tasting plate of tales from which to go forth and look for other writers and novels to explore.

All in all it is a good , solid collection and I spent an enjoyable time dipping in and out of it.

About the editor…

Martin Edwards’ latest Rachel Severnake novel,‘Gallows Court was published in September 2018.

He is consultant to the British Library’s Crime Classics series, and has written sixteen contemporary whodunits, including ‘The Coffin Trail’, which was shortlisted for the Theakston’s Prize for best crime novel of the year.

His genre study ‘The Golden Age Of Murder’ won the Edgar, Agatha, H.R.F. Keating and Macavity awards, while ‘The Story Of Classic Crime In 100 Books’ has been nominated for two awards in the UK and three in the US. Editor of 38 anthologies, he has also won the CWA Short Story Dagger and the CWA Margery Allingham Prize, and been nominated for an Anthony, the CWA Dagger in the Library, the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger, and a CWA Gold Dagger. He is President of the Detection Club and Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, and Archivist of both organisations. He has received the Red Herring award for services to the CWA, and the Poirot award for his outstanding contribution to the crime genre.

Links-http://www.martinedwardsbooks.com/

Twitter @medwardsbooks @flametreepress @RandomTTours