CWA Anthology of Short Stories – Mystery Tour – Edited by Martin Edwards

Firstly, an apology from me. I am a little late with this review purely down to pressure of work commitments.

Many will know of my love of short stories so I was delighted when a copy of CWA Anthology of Short Stories – Mystery Tour landed on my doormat from Orenda Books. The Crime Writer’s Association has brought together some of the very best crime writers for a world tour – of crime writing. Now this is my kind of world tour.

From the UK to France, the Ukraine, South Africa and India along with many more on a murderous crime spree of twenty-eight short stories. This is just the most incredible collection of stories by some of the very best in crime writing.

With contributions from: Ann 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 Jónasson, Sarah Rayne, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Vaseem Khan, William Ryan and William Burton McCormick.

I do though say that this is the first of the Crime Writer’s Anthologies I have read. How I have managed to avoid not reading any of the prior volumes is beyond me as they are just so good. The names just like a roll call of great crime writers. Ann Cleeves, Anna Mazzola and Ragnar Jónasson just three of the writers I was looking forward to reading as I am a bit of a fan of their writing.

One of the great aspects of a collection of short stories is how different they can be but when you bring together so many different writers the stories just take on a completely new dimension and also the varied writing styles of each of the writers. Diverse and gripping is how I would describe each one in turn. The real beauty of this anthology is that each of the stories is about ten pages in length. Which if you are travelling to and from work is just perfect. I read this book inside two days. But just imagine for a moment how difficult it is in writing a crime story in ten pages. I could not leave this book alone it is that good. One of the stories by Christine Poulsen is called Accounting for Murder and is a crime story based purely on receipts there are no words written it is just receipts. Think about that one. It is actually rather clever and it worked.

As for the story by Ragnar Jónasson called A Postcard from Iceland yes I loved it. It is two pages and a postcard from someone to their mother. It is just the ending. I will say no more.

To say this is a fabulous collection is an understatement. It is simply brilliant. I am going to dip in and out of some of the stories again and again through the long chilly winters nights. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

276 Pages.

Thank you to Karen Sullivan at Orenda Books for the review copy of CWA Anthology of Short Stories – Mystery Tour.

CWA Anthology of Short Stories – Mystery Tour is published by Orenda Books and was published on 15^th November 2017 and is available through Waterstones, Amazon and all good bookshops.