Back in 2011, Barry and I reviewed TOP
SUSPENSE: 13 Classic Stories by 12
Masters of the Genre in individual reviews. Barry had gotten his
copy from Bill Crider and Dave Zeltserman had provided me a copy for review.
Today, as part of Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by Patti Abbott, it is a double take
review as part of the celebration today of anthologies. With our differing
styles, the reviews should complement each other as well as cover the book in
different ways.
The bottom line is we both like the
book very much......
TOP SUSPENSE: 13 Classic Stories by 12 Masters of the Genre
Reviewed
by Barry Ergang
I suspect many readers feel as I do
about most anthologies, genres notwithstanding, and find them uneven as to the
quality of the stories they contain. Some stories are superb, others mediocre.
Some make you wonder how and why they made it into the book at all.
Top Suspense proved to be an exception to that
generality. An anthology from a group of some of today’s finest practitioners
in the mystery/suspense field, each of the stories it contains is an engrossing
read. There is plenty of variety here, each story being very different from its
companions. With the caveat that several of them contain crude language, vivid
violence, and graphic sex, and thus might disturb some sensibilities, here is
the lineup:--
In Max Allan Collins’s “Unreasonable
Doubt,” Chicago P.I. Nate Heller, president of the A-1 Detective Agency, while
vacationing in California visits his partner Fred Rubinski and ends up taking
on a case Fred is too busy to handle himself--a case based partly on fact, as
Collins explains in an afterword, involving the strong-willed teenaged daughter
of a wealthy couple, the girl’s gold-digging boyfriend, and a vicious double
murder.
Bill Crider’s story “Death’s Brother”
finds a middle-aged professor of Romantic literature engaged in some
extracurricular activity with a beautiful young student: extra-legal,
extra-lethal activity.
Forbidden to leave the garden without
telling his mother, Dylan nevertheless sneaks off to play with some
neighborhood children who take him to an industrial area beneath a country
park, a trip that has serious consequences, in Stephen Gallagher’s “Poisoned.”
“Remaindered,” Lee Goldberg’s darkly
comic inverted detective story, concerns a writer desperate to revive a
flagging career who meets an ardent--and amorous--fan at a book signing, who
invites the writer to see her collection of signed first editions, among other
things. The writer’s wife is hundreds of miles away and never needs to know.
Where’s the harm? It won’t kill anybody--right?
Seventeen-year-old Bobby Staley,
lusting after a young woman slightly older than he, bargains with God to
see her naked. Thirty-four-year-old Vivian Chase, on the run from an accomplice
after half a lifetime of robberies and seeking repentance, wants only to take
care of the needs of the teenaged daughter she left in the care of another
years before. Their paths converge in Joel Goldberg’s potent “Fire in the Sky.”
“The Baby Store” may at first seem out
of place in an anthology of stories focused on crime and mystery, but Ed
Gorman’s offbeat tale of a competitive future in which prospective parents can
literally design their children ultimately deals with crime on a
personal and, some readers will probably believe, a societal scale.
In Libby Fischer Hellmann’s “The Jade
Elephant,” a professional burglar’s conscience is piqued after he gets some
good news from a doctor but learns that one of his former marks has a serious
medical problem. Wanting to make amends, he must contend with a partner who is
a great deal less sensitive to the needs of others, and with a very determined
fence.
Maternal and murderous instincts drive
the protagonist in Vicki Hendricks’ raw, explicit, and ironic “The Big O”--a
woman seeking a perverse kind of redemption for the sake of her year-old son,
who must contend with his abusive father from whom she’s fled, the drug-dealing
abusive lover she accepts solely to have a place to live, and a hurricane
that’s both literal and symbolic.
Depicting the lingering anti-Japanese
sentiment that permeated southern California in 1951, Naomi Hirahara’s “The Chirashi
Covenant” tells the story of a Japanese-American woman who longs to sell the
house she shares with her husband, daughter, and mother-in-law in a Japanese
enclave , and find a new home closer to the ocean. Her quest leads to
infidelity, tragedy, and revenge.
The narrator of Paul Levine‘s “El
Valiente En El Infierno (The Brave One in Hell)” is Victor Castillo, a
thirteen-year-old Mexican boy who, along with others--among them a pregnant
Honduran girl--is attempting a midnight border crossing into California. He
wants to get to his Aunt Luisa in Ocotillo. She’ll help him get to Minnesota so
he can join his father and older brothers. A couple of vigilantes from the
Patriot Patrol have other ideas.
Another story that takes place in the
desert, this one in Nevada, is Harry Shannon’s tense and memorable “A Handful
of Dust,” in which a hit man named Pike meets and confers with a bizarre
prospective client who has an even more bizarre request.
Because of his partner’s ineptitude, a
thief must bid on a painting from an auction house because its frame conceals
the key to a storage locker containing three hundred thousand dollars he and
the partner stole. In Dave Zeltserman’s fast-paced “The Canary,” the problem is
that someone else is bidding, too.
“The Chase” is the thirteenth and final
story in the anthology. It’s a round-robin effort, as explained in a prefatory
note: “Each member wrote 250 words and sent it on to the next until it had gone
around twice. No planning, re-writing or polishing allowed.” For this reason
it’s the weakest story of the lot--but saying so is akin to fruitlessly
debating who’s stronger, Superman or the Hulk. Whatever “The Chase” lacks in
comparison with the individually written tales that precede it, it makes up for
in nearly non-stop action. Like its predecessors, it will hook and hold
readers.
If the authors represented in Top
Suspense are among the kings and queens of their genre, these stories are
jewels for their respective crowns. Highly recommended.
Barry Ergang © 2011, 2016
Some of Derringer Award-winning author’s Barry Ergang’s work is available at Smashwords and Amazon.
Featuring 13 stories by twelve authors
this anthology released as an e-book features a lot of variety in the tales.
These previously published stories take place in a variety of settings with
tremendously different themes and writing styles. Because of the variety there
should be several stories that will please any reader.
Max Allen Collins opens the book with
“Unreasonable Doubt.” Nathan Heller is in Los Angeles in 1947 and is
supposed to be on vacation. It isn’t a vacation very long as he is pulled into
the Overell case. Like many a dad before him, Walter E. Overell does not want
to see his daughter marry a guy dad is sure is bad news. What he needs is
proof. He wants Nathan Heller and his partner Fred Rubinski to get the goods on
the guy so that Walter Overell can prove to his daughter the guy only wants her
for the family money.
Bill Crider follows with his noir tale,
“Death’s Brother.” Sometimes the professor just has to help his student
outside of the classroom. Professor Jon Cline certainly intends to
help. The money will be nice too.
In possibly the most disturbing story
of the book Stephen Gallager tells the tale of a lonely only child seeking
friends to play with as well as escape from his overbearing parents in
“Poisoned.” The surrounding English countryside has numerous dangers, many of
them man made. Dylan’s attempts to fit in with the neighborhood kids are
a recipe for disaster that will rock many parents.
Book signings bring out all kinds and
doing one at an area K-Mart in Spokane, Washington may not be the best idea in
“Remaindered.” Written by Lee Golberg, this story features author Kevin
Dangler who has been written off by everyone as a one hit wonder. Desperate
times call for desperate measures as he meets possibly his biggest fan.
Seventeen year old Bobby
Staley wants just one thing out of God – he wants to see Elizabeth Bumiller
naked in the beginning of “Fire in the Sky” by Joel Goldman. This Depression
Era story has nothing to do with Mr. Goldman’s series featuring trial lawyer
Lou Mason or FBI Special Agent Jack Davis. Still, the story is a good one
and features genetics and destiny at work.
“The Baby Store” by Ed Gorman tackles a
subject familiar to science fiction readers – the quest to have the perfect
baby. For Kevin McKay, in light of recent events, that quest is
particularly upsetting but his fellow lawyers don’t see the pain they cause by
bragging on their own kids. Designer kids are the new fad for the wealthy
and powerful and they just don’t care what other folks think. While Kevin is
getting ready to design another child, his wife may not be.
“The Jade Elephant Plant” by Libby
Fischer Hellman is the tale of a green jade elephant sitting in a pawnshop
window and repercussions. It may not be a doggie in the window but Gus
needs it just the same. Too bad he originally stole it six months ago.
“The Big O” by Vicki Hendricks is not
the kind of story the title implies. Or, maybe it is depending on how your mind
works. Either way, this tale of a woman trying to start over somewhere on the
shores of Lake Okeechobee is a good one. Taking her one-year-old son,
Chance, and running seemed like a good idea to Candy. But, running did not change
who she is and old habits are very hard to break in this hard hitting story.
Naomi Hirahara contributes “The Chirashi
Covenant” set just after World War Two. Racism against Japanese Americans
is a major issue and serves as a backdrop to this intriguing story. A
chance meeting might change the lives of Helen and her husband Frank forever.
“El Valiente En El Inferno” (The Brave
One In Hell) written by Paul Levine describes the terror Victor Castillo,
thirteen years old, faces trying to get across the border into the US.
Part of a group that is intercepted by two Americans bent on preventing
illegals from crossing while also having some twisted fun at their expense, it
is up to Victor to save himself and others.
Harry Shannon takes readers to his home
state of Nevada in “A Handful of Dust.” It takes Pike the better part of the
night to drive to a bar in a barely still alive town in the high desert.
The bug zapper on the porch of the bar is not the only thing that kills---just
the most obvious.
“The Canary” by Dave Zeltserman is
billed as “This is a simple crime story featuring a thief and a canary. Make
that two canaries.” Not to argue with the author but it is also a story
about a very simple truth that stretches from the lowest place on Earth to the
penthouse and every stop in between. Plans for success—no matter the
endeavor—are always ruined by incompetent help.
The final story of the anthology is the
round robin story the original members of the Top Suspense Group created and
published last year. Each member wrote 250 words and sent the evolving story on
to the next writer. No polishing, editing, planning, etc. was allowed as the
growing story made its way through the group twice. The very good result
was titled “The Chase” and fittingly concludes the book.
Read by way of the free Kindle for PC
program, this strong and wide ranging anthology is available in a variety of
e-book formats. It showcases the work of some of the best crime/mystery writers
in the game today. Full of rich characters and lots of twists that you will not
see coming, the reads contained in this book are good ones.
TOP SUSPENSE: 13 CLASSIC STORIES BY 12
MASTERS OF THE GENRE
Edited by Dave Zeltserman
March 2011
ASIN: B0074QKGHO
eBook
(also available in paperback
188 Pages
$4.99
Material supplied by Dave Zeltserman in
exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2011, 2016
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