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Mammoth Book Best International Crime
New book
544 pages, Paperback
First published August 27, 2009
7 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
About the author
Maxim Jakubowski
279 books161 followersMaxim 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 14, 2020
A (very) mixed bag. Some -for me- worth checking out authors, some well known and not very good (Deaver).
Want to read
April 29, 2019Synopsis: thirty six short stories from Rendell, Akunin, Mortimer, Taibo II, Deaver, Appel, Engel, Spillane, Collins, Rankin, Nesbo and others.
March 11, 2013
A mixed bag... some simply awesome and chilling, some okay, some not so good
April 2, 2021
Out of 40 stories, there were 3 that I enjoyed. All of those were originally written in English.
The translators here did extremely poor jobs, not only with direct translation (eg calling a tree trunk a stem) but with the rhythm and idiom of English. And the worst was trying to make explicable other cultural norms to an English reading audience. Much of the time I had no idea what they were getting at when it came to feelings or habits and the like.
And not to forget that he threw in a couple of his erotica specialities, which I don't have a lot of interest in, and the one I (wo)manfully struggled through ended with the protagonist about to be arrested - the guy did what he did, things happened, and he decided to call the police because they'd understand, buy you don't hear the call, nothing, just a blurb about him sitting in jail waiting for his faith to be upheld. I guess you had to be there . . .
It was mostly a strange and unreadable book.
I understand that a translator's work is very difficult, as they're not only translating words, but world views. That ain't easy! But I read so much translated work, Latin American, African, Japanese and Scandinavian and really appreciate a good translator.
I'll put up with a mediocre one, but most of these seemed to have been done with a dictionary in hand and were just truly terrible.
A shame, because I generally enjoy Jakubowski's crime anthologies.
The translators here did extremely poor jobs, not only with direct translation (eg calling a tree trunk a stem) but with the rhythm and idiom of English. And the worst was trying to make explicable other cultural norms to an English reading audience. Much of the time I had no idea what they were getting at when it came to feelings or habits and the like.
And not to forget that he threw in a couple of his erotica specialities, which I don't have a lot of interest in, and the one I (wo)manfully struggled through ended with the protagonist about to be arrested - the guy did what he did, things happened, and he decided to call the police because they'd understand, buy you don't hear the call, nothing, just a blurb about him sitting in jail waiting for his faith to be upheld. I guess you had to be there . . .
It was mostly a strange and unreadable book.
I understand that a translator's work is very difficult, as they're not only translating words, but world views. That ain't easy! But I read so much translated work, Latin American, African, Japanese and Scandinavian and really appreciate a good translator.
I'll put up with a mediocre one, but most of these seemed to have been done with a dictionary in hand and were just truly terrible.
A shame, because I generally enjoy Jakubowski's crime anthologies.
April 5, 2011
This is a fantastic collection of really good quality crime fiction from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives.
The compilation is made up of 36 stories (too many to list here anyway) from a diverse range of writers and countries. That's part of what's great about this collection - not just an opportunity to hear different voices and perspectives from a wide range of cultures, but to see how crime fiction is universal. Add to that the fact that there really isn't a dud in the bunch, and I found this collection absolutely terrific and can't recommend it highly enough.
The compilation is made up of 36 stories (too many to list here anyway) from a diverse range of writers and countries. That's part of what's great about this collection - not just an opportunity to hear different voices and perspectives from a wide range of cultures, but to see how crime fiction is universal. Add to that the fact that there really isn't a dud in the bunch, and I found this collection absolutely terrific and can't recommend it highly enough.
March 22, 2023
Some good stories, some not so good. Some long and some too short to get into.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews