Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: All the Crime in the World by Gigi Pandian (Editor), Tom Mead (Editor)

 

Crippen & Landru Publishers (C&L) compiles and produces short story collections, usually by a single-author, both contemporary and from the past. It’s the latter that I find most valuable, since so many authors published prolifically in weekly newspapers and magazines well before the digital age could capture them for posterity. Locating copies of these stories is a real challenge; most of the periodicals are long extinct and were not indexed. Authors contributing to anthologies of all kinds is common now. These anthologies are seldom indexed in any meaningful way and a compilation protects short stories that might otherwise be lost. C&L preserves these stories for generations to come and for readers interested in an author’s entire output.

In All the Crime in the World, to be released on 4 August 2026, C&L honors the resurgence in popularity of the locked room mystery. Editors Gigi Pandian and Tom Mead, both talented authors of contemporary locked room mystery series, present 14 short stories from an impressive line-up of international writers.

Most often attributed to John Dickson Carr (1906-1977), the locked room mystery is one in which there appears to be no way for the crime to have taken place. All access to the room is locked or otherwise inaccessible, i.e., the chimney is far too small for a human to climb down, and all potential culprits can show they were elsewhere but the valuable relic has been stolen or someone has been killed in that room. Not to be confused with the closed circle mystery, in which only a few people can be considered suspects. The classic murder on an island or in a manor house during a snowstorm is good example of a closed circle mystery. Locked room mysteries are expected to be fair play, offering all the clues to the solution somewhere in plain sight, so that readers can work out for themselves how the crime occurred. I never succeed but the effort adds to the enjoyment of the story.

Included in this collection are puzzles written by well-known authors from Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, India, Japan, The Netherlands, Singapore, and the United States: Victor Bonini, James Scott Byrnside, Shelly Dickson Carr, S.A. Cosby, Anne van Doorn, Martin Edwards, Sulari Gentill, Paul Halter, Christopher Huang, Vaseem Khan, Yamaguchi Masaya, Josh Pachter, and Ovidia Yu, in addition to a story by editors Gigi Pandian and Tom Mead.

The narratives take place in the past, in the present, and in alternate worlds. Locations are eclectic: hotels, rooftops, universities, tea ceremonies, gardens, birthday parties, weddings, and a murder mystery party that backfires. The equally diverse set of victims include a drug dealer, an artificial intelligence engineer, an arrogant author, a greedy financier, a crooked property manager, an entitled university student, a hanging judge, and a rising politician. Solutions are nothing less than ingenious.

Saying much about any one story risks giving away the answer, which would be unfair. Rest assured they are all admirable examples of the genre. Starred review from Publishers Weekly.

 

·                   Publisher: ‎Crippen & Landru

·                   Publication date: ‎August 4, 2026

·                   Language: ‎English

·                   Print length: ‎294 pages

·                   ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1-9714-8906-3

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4w5o5HV

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©202 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.