Friday's Forgotten Books: Fedora III edited by Michael Bracken

This week for Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by Patti Abbott, I thought I would take another look at another anthology edited by Michael Bracken. It seemed fitting with all the interest these days, especially in noir and rime anthologies, to resurrect my review of Fedora III. The review below first appeared online at Mysterical-E back when I was doing reviews there for Joe Demarco.

So, sit back and enjoy the review and then hunt down your copy of the book.





By now, pretty much everyone is very familiar with the classic detective cliché. The Hardnosed P. I. alone in his office when the beautiful dame (great legs, of course) walks in. Smoke wreathes the ceiling as she folds her long legs under the chair and tells our hero her problem. He can help her he decides and beyond that, there is something she makes him feel that he hasn't felt for a very long time. In this anthology, the cliché is stood on its head and spun around for interesting results.

This anthology, the third of the Fedora series, features seventeen hard-hitting stories of men being hardnosed men, dealing with the evil that walks the mean streets. While it is impossible to cover each story in detail, the selections below reflect a small sampling of the range of stories.

"Ordained Sin" by Carol Kilgore features Nolan Douglas who just ticked off his girlfriend-again. But, a case that falls into his lap just might help him ease back into her good graces as well as allowing him to clean up some human scum. Sometimes the innocents truly do suffer and nothing and no one can save them.

"One Hit Wonder" By J. L. Abramo is an intriguing story of a misdialed phone call. When placing your phone order for a hit, make sure you call the right number and not Jake Diamond of Diamond Investigations.

No anthology would be complete without at least one story about bail bonds and bond jumpers. In this case, read "Kane's Mutiny" by Bev Vincent. Not only is Jimmy Weber on the run with Kane looking for him, Weber's wife wants to help Kane any way she can.

Featuring stories from other excellent writers such as Tom Sweeney, Lee Goldberg, George Wilhite, David Terrenoire, David Bart, James S. Dorr, Chelle Martin, Dorothy Rellas, Ann Aptaker, Nick Andreychuk, Michael Hemmingson, Graham Powell, Kevin Egan and Editor Michael Bracken, interested readers won't find a bad story in the bunch. The tough guys care, whether they show it or not, the women are almost uniformly devious, and the streets and other locations are mean. It's a good thing.

Fedora III

Edited by Michael Bracken

http://www.crimefictionwriter.com/

Wildside Press

http://www.wildsidepress.com/

November 2004

ISBN# 978-0809589456

Paperback

280 Pages

32.95

Material provided by Michael Bracken in exchange for my objective review.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2004, 2010