The Mammoth Book of the World's Best Crime Stories

by Maxim Jakubowski (Editor)

Get your fix with a winning collection that covers a full range of crime fiction, from noir and thrillers to whodunits and procedurals that take place across the globe.

Genres: Crime, Short Stories, Anthologies

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Maxim Jakubowski is a crime, erotic, and science fiction writer and critic.

Jakubowski was born in England by Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has travelled extensively. Jakubowski edited the science fiction anthology Twenty Houses of the Zodiac in 1979 for the 37th World Science Fiction Convention (Seacon '79) in Brighton. He also contributed a short story to that anthology. He has now published almost 100 books in a variety of areas.

He has worked in book publishing for many years, which he left to open the Murder One bookshop[1], the UK's first specialist crime and mystery bookstore. He contributes to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and was for eight years the crime columnist for Time Out and, presently, since 2000, the crime reviewer for The Guardian. He is also the literary director of London's Crime Scene Festival and a consultant for the International Mystery Film Festival, Noir in Fest, held annually in Courmayeur, Italy. He is one the leading editors in the crime and mystery and erotica field, in which he has published many major anthologies.

His novels include "It's You That I Want To Kiss", "Because She Thought She Loved Me", "The State Of Montana", "On Tenderness Express", "Kiss me Sadly" and "Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer". His short story collections are "Life in the World of Women", "Fools for Lust" and the collaborative "American Casanova". He is a regular broadcaster on British TV and radio and was recently voted the 4th Sexiest Writer of 2,007 on a poll on the crimespace website.

Reviews

[Pleaseadvise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was shocked by how much I enjoyed these stories. The cover looks so lurid and silly, but many the stories were surprisingly almost literary.

[Luce Cronin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of stories. It introduced me to authors I was not familiar with, and gave me a glimpse of crime writing across different countries/cultures of the world. For instance, my favourite was a story entitled 'The deepest South" by Paco Ignacio Taibo II. This story was so different than any other crime story I had ever read that it took me by surprise. Almost surrealistic. Beautifully written. This book will be a keeper on my shelves so that I can find other stories by authors in this collection - a sort of reference manual for further exploration.

[Felipe Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of random stories from writers across the globe. Most of them are either golden-era thriller wannabes, exotic period pieces or modern psychothrillers. Almost all of the stories are forgettable mediocre mistery/adventure tales, with no real substance, yet enjoyable trash. Some are annoyingly bad and problematic. A few of them stands out pretty highly and made me search for more from the authors. All in all, it's a useful showcase to discover who to read and not to read. (Don't read greek authors - for real).

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Musím říct, že antologie krimipovídek byla opravdu zajímavá. Povídky se četly dobře a děj pěkně odsýpal. Každý z autorů pojal téma po svém a rozhodně nenudil. Některé povídky jsou vyprávěné s humorem a další plné erotiky. Za nejlepší bych označil Šťastný nález a Záhadu městské legendy. Nikoho asi nepřekvapí, že se mi líbila povídka Jeffreyho Deavera, Vánoční dárek. Ale abych jenom nechválil - trochu mě zklamala povídka Joa Nesbøho. Nebyla tak strhující jako jeho romány, ale asi bych mě dodat, že se jedná o starší práci. Dál mě nijak zvlášť neoslovila kratší práce s názvem Andělské dítě. Pokud vás žánr krimi láká, určitě si tuhle antologii nenechte ujít.

[Leland · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a tough job putting together a great anthology. The stories have to not only be selected to correspond to a particular theme (and if the theme is too general, it almost never works) but they have to be able to read together well.

This anthology really failed because the theme is very broad (international) and because the stories don't really flow. There are some very fine stories, which are worth reading, but I don't recommend this as a collection one should sit and read cover to cover.

[Les · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sigh. If the word "Best" is replaced with "Random" then the title would be accurate. Many of these stories are mediocre or just downright uninteresting. They are poorly arranged and the "collection" is just a thrown-together grouping (if that). I'm sure there are diamonds in here, but damn near all I read (and I picked several stories) was rough.

[Nancy]

Entertaining. A nice contrast with Little Dorrit
April 12, 2010, I'm back to reading this book while I wait for some books to come into the library to pick up. The Strawberry Tree by Ruth Rendell from this collection of crime stories is very well written.

[Josef · Rating 3 out of 5]

Několik povídek bylo příjemných a zajímavých, některé byly trochu méně zajímavé a bohužel dost velká část z nich mě vyloženě nebavila. Na druhou stranu sbírka povídek pokrývá širokou plochu krimi žánru (až mi někdy přišlo, že už ani o krimi nejde), takže je logické, že se nezavděčí všem.

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, I didn't finish a single story. I started the first 5 or so and couldn't get into any of them, so I gave up.