Thursday 1 May 2008

M.O.: crimes of method


It’s taken a long, long time to put it together, but the new Crime Writers’ Association anthology has today been published by Comma Press. I’ve edited M.O.: crimes of method and, in total, it’s the sixteenth anthology of crime writing for which I’ve been responsible.

This one has taken longer than expected to arrive on the bookshelves, but is a follow-up to the 2006 collection ID: crimes of identity, which yielded the winner of the CWA Short Story Award that year (Robert Barnard, for ‘Sins of Scarlet’.)

The sub-title of this book is ‘crimes of method’, and the contributors have interpreted that broad theme in a variety of ways. Here is a flavour of the stories:

• a coroner reveals a corpse’s secrets to his students as he unwittingly dissects his own relationship...
• a breakdown driver turns his roadside routine into a very different type of pick-up…
• a creative writing tutor champions the ‘hardboiled’ school while a murderous student seems intent on proving it’s procedure that really counts….

The contributors are: Robert Barnard, Martyn Bedford, Ann Cleeves, Bernie Crosthwaite, Carol Anne Davis, Jurgen Ehlers, Kate Ellis, Liz Evans, Paul Freeman, Jim Gregson, Mick Herron, Sarah Hilary, Andre Marois, Amy Myers, Christine Poulson, Katrine Smith, Douglas Stewart and Yvonne Eve Walus.

And me, with a story called ‘Bedside Manners’.

1 comment:

Sarah Hilary said...

It's a terrific collection, Martin, congratulations! I loved Bedside Manners.