books
Book review – Oxcrimes
An anthology of crime stories from the best crime writers sounds just about right for a sinful indulgence without committing crime yourself.
After all, it’s only a crime when you commit it; having it dance in and around your brain is anything but.
With 27 authors ranging from Ian Rankin to Walter Mosley to Anthony Horowitz, this compilation dishes out almost every mini-crime you can think of.
These stories are usually compressed versions of their more extended works. So, there’s Donald E Westlake’s “Murderous schemes: An anthology of crime stories” and Patricia Craig’s “The Oxford book of English detective stories”.
“Oxcrimes: 27 killer stories from the cream of crime writers” delivers more punches than those two.
Ironically, the book is a fundraising effort for Oxfam, the global poverty-solving organisation – dirty stuff for a good cause. Not a bad idea.
Personal favourites are George Pelecanos’s “The dead their eyes implore us” set in 1930’s racist America; Anne Zouroudi’s “The Honey Trap” which is about a girl’s mysterious disappearance; Stuart Neville’s spin on Twelve Angry Men in “Juror 8”; and Peter Robinson’s “People just don’t listen” about a killer with a fetish for eyeballs.
Every word counts. These are no whodunits or predictable plots. The prose is gripping, with really good storytelling overall.
Duds? Yeah, there are few. Let’s begin with Ian Rankin, the man who introduces the book. He is right in saying they would “provide a rich diet”, but his piece “An afternoon” just leaves you starving. In fact, his notes on that piece, which is found on the next page, is a more satisfying read.
Neil Gaiman’s Sherlock Holmes pastiche is just mundane. “The Case of Death and Honey” depicting an old Holmes cheating death, on the hunt for an elixir of youth, is just about the most boring interpretation of Holmes there is. Also, it is only a crime story because it adopts a moral high ground, which is, again, blah.
That moral high ground is also what sullies Anthony Horowitz’s “Caught short” where an advertising professional escapes murder, only for fate to take its course. Ditch the karma and celebrate the crime.
There are some clichéd titles as well. Val McDermid’s “I’ve seen that movie too” merely banks on a gay relationship where two women are ultimately outdoing each other and one dies because the other is more cunning.
Meanwhile Walter Mosley’s “The sin of dreams” is an unsatisfying attempt at cloning where the protagonist ends up being a messiah of sorts.
What is lacking, if there’s any, is a crime story where the criminal gets off scot-free, enjoying the darkness without doing time.
However this is an Oxfam project, so there is that element of humanness in there, where sometimes good triumphs over evil or that life in the bad lane is always disastrous.
“Oxcrimes: 27 killer stories from the cream of crime writers” is published by Profile Books and is priced at RM45. It is available at Kinokuniya, KLCC, and all royalties go to the Oxfam charity.
With previous books "OxTravels" and "OxTales" having raised over a quarter of a million pounds since their 2009 publication, Oxfam are hoping "OxCrimes" will raise even more, helping tackle poverty and suffering around the world. Visit Oxfam’s emergency response pages to find out more about how you can help. – August 8, 2014.
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