Reviews

Cwa Anthology of Short Stories: Mystery Tour by

meggyroussel's review

4.0

Let's begin the day with an Orenda Books review! And not any review. Today I'm finally publishing my thoughts about the CWA anthology of short stories. Personal reasons prevented me from posting on time, I apologize to the lovely Karen Sullivan and to the patient Anne Cater for this! This post in my thank you for including me in the tour!

Short stories.

Those words used to scare me. I believed stories needed layers and time to settle in a reader’s mind and work their magic. Doesn’t a setting require time to take form in the imagination, and doesn’t a character grow into a fully-fleshed multi-dimensional person only in more than three pages?

I was stuck on the length.



I changed my mind.

In the hands of capable writers, the number of pages has nothing to do with your enjoyment of a story. I opened this anthology without looking at the names included in. I wanted surprises. I wanted to be proved wrong without biases.

We authors don’t have groupies the way rock musicians are rumored to.

As I turned the pages, I travelled, like a companion in the Tardis jumping from one time and one place to another. It felt new, it felt fresh and it aroused my curiosity at every stop. All those different tales brought together remind us of the power of words instead of the importance of length. Why run a crappy marathon when you can win a beautiful short race? I am not saying the authors who took part are in no way able to transport us with amazing novels (some already did it with me!) but now I understand it takes more than pages to make a book. Naive, maybe, but until now, I couldn’t think of short stories which had kept me hooked and turning pages faster than my fingers could handle.

But real life is not like a story.

Every title was a promise. I did recognize some authors and I will admit I put more pressure on their stories than for those whose authors I did not know. No one let me down. Everyone convinced me. Characters, atmospheres, they were all created so beautifully they did not need a hundred pages. I had enough information to appreciate the work. The play on formats, the ending twists, the surprising elements, all of them were delivered in a strong way, leaving me begging for more. I loved the diversity of stories, it fed my need for originality and gave me enough to wonder what those authors can’t do!!!

Trust a crime writer to commit a perfect crime.

Crime fiction is my favorite genre, but it comes with a list of demands to make a story work. I truly believe this is one of the hardest genres to pack into short stories. Every word count, every detail is scrutinized and chosen with the finest taste, every drop of blood measured. This anthology reveals the best of crime fiction is its shortest but most powerful form.

I applaud all the writers and will now include their names here because without their words, I wouldn't have changed my mind on short stories!

Thanks to:
Anne Cleeves
C.L. Taylor
Susi Holliday
Martin Edwards
Anna Mazzola
Carol Anne Davis
Cath Staincliffe
Chris Simms
Christine Poulson
Ed James
Gordon Brown
J.M. Hewitt
Judith Cutler
Julia Crouch
Kate Ellis
Kate Rhodes
Martine Bailey
Michael Stanley
Maxim Jakubowski
Paul Charles
Paul Gitsham
Peter Lovesey
Ragnar Jonasson
Sarah Rayne
Shawn Reilly Simmons
Vaseem Khan
William Ryan
William Burton McCormick

karlou's review

5.0

It's been a while since I've read a collection of short stories and longer still since I've read an anthology by different authors but what a way to remind myself what I've been missing! The only problem was where to start, should I choose an author or pick a story at random? Eventually I decided to start at the very beginning (as Julie Andrews once suggested!)
Every single story here is a treat; the theme for the anthology is a mystery tour and so we're taken around the world and see human life exposed in all its deadly forms. There's something here for fans of almost every sort of crime novel - police procedurals, psychological thrillers, noir, cosy mysteries and more. Victims are dispatched in a myriad of ways; shot, burned to death, poisoned, strangled with a guitar string, even ice cream tubs feature as murder weapons... Some of the perpetrators are caught, others escape, sometimes a rough justice is served, sometimes the victims are unfortunate enough to meet a monster.
I don't want to pick any particular favourites because I really enjoyed every story here, this really is crime writing of the very highest quality. The skill involved in writing a great short story is perhaps not always appreciated enough, every author here has succeeded in creating a compelling and satisfying tale that never left me feeling I'd been short-changed. That said, there were a few where I'd love to read more from the characters and to learn where life takes them next.
The CWA Mystery Tour would make a fabulous Christmas present for any crime fiction lover; the ideal book to pick up and put down during the frantic festive season. However, it should also come with a warning because writing this engaging is like a tube of Pringles - once you start reading, you might find you can't stop!

fictionophile's review

4.0

This exciting collection of short stories features crime writers working with a "mystery tour" or travel theme. Showcasing the diversity of the contemporary crime-fiction genre, these 28 compelling stories will take you on a memorable trip - and you'll not even have to leave your armchair.

It has been too long since I've immersed myself in a tome of short stories. I know that they are not for everyone.  Myself, I enjoy them a lot, I own a lot of anthologies, yet, inexplicably, I tend to read novels most of the time.

I read short stories to see how some of my favourite authors cope with the limited word count of the short story.  I also read short stories to discover potential new to me authors.

My favourite stories in this collection were:

"Return to the Lake" by Anna Mazzola
"High Flyer" by Chris Simms
"No way back" by J.M. Hewitt
"Mystery tour" by Judith Cutler

Many of these short stories had a astonishing ending.
The story that most shocked me was: "A Clever Evil" by Sarah Rayne

One story that I didn't care for was:
“Accounting for Murder” by Christine Poulson: a story told solely through a series of receipts for goods & services.  This might have been a clever way to tell a story, but it wasn't to my taste.

New (to me) authors from this collection that I intend to read more of:

Anna Mazzola
Chris Simms
Ragnar Jónasson

These stories were concise and powerful. In my opinion, anyone who enjoys crime fiction will enjoy this collection, whether or not they are a fan of the short format.  Recommended!

I received a digital copy of this anthology from Trafalgar Square Publishing/Orenda Books via NetGalley.