100 Crooked Little Crime Stories

by Martin H. Greenberg, Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz

From the puzzle tale in Alexandre Dumas' "The Man of the Knife" to Gerald Tollesfrud's police procedural "Switch," this richly varied collection spans more than 200 years and encompasses virtually every kind of crime story. Ernest Leong's "Incense Sticks" offers a taste of noir thriller. Allen Beack's "Always Together" features dark, bloody fratricide. Ferenc Molnar's "The Best Policy" tells a fasinating tale of embezzlement, while Gary Lovisi's "New Blood" stars a compelling serial killer. There's kidnapping in Edgar Wallace's "The Slavemaker," bigamy in Joyce Kilmer's "Whitemail," drive-by shootings in Dane Gregory's "Jackie Won't Be Home," and a crime so bizarre in Geoggrey Vace's "The Hard-Luck Kid" that it simply defies classification. Each one will get the blood racing and the mind working in overdrive.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Short Stories, Crime, Anthologies, Horror

608 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 1994

About the author

Martin Harry Greenberg was an American academic and speculative fiction anthologist. In all, he compiled 1,298 anthologies and commissioned over 8,200 original short stories. He founded Tekno Books, a packager of more than 2000 published books. In addition, he was a co-founder of the Sci-Fi Channel.

For the 1950s anthologist and publisher of Gnome Press, see Martin Greenberg.

Reviews

[Mauoijenn]

A chunky book filled with 100 crime stories filled with mystery, death and destruction. On a bad note, only a handful of these were really good. The other 80% were just okay.

[Savanna Stevenson]

i didn't enjoy this book at all....there was some intersting stories but for the most part i didn't enjoy i was so ready to finish the book and now that i'm finish it going straight into my goodwill pile.

[Tatjana]

By and large most of these stories are poorly written and cliche.
Lots of stories with crooks who call women broads and say, "...,see?"
There are the occasional gems and the book is blissfully free of the big names. If you can get it at the library and have read everything else, then it's a terrific bathroom companion.
If not, don't go looking for it. You will be disappointed.

[Jen]

Of the 100 stories, there were maybe 5 or 6 that I thought were really good. The other 95 or so, were "meh" at best.

[hyper saline]

This book is great. Most of the stories are so old and weird and unsophisticated. Some are decent, none are really good. Each story, though, is a little spot in time when writing was different and pulpy and the writers got paid in wooden nickels.

There are no less than three stories where the perpetrator is caught because they're colorblind. Most of them are crime stories but there are the occasional supernatural ones. A woman kills her sister, and then the ghost sister kills her! Some are incredibly dumb, like the man who forgot his fake name and lost out on his stolen loot. The kids who repaired a chair, and then the chair killed a guy! They're ridiculous.

Lots of smooth talkers, jive talkers, sweet talkers, etc. Really a great little time machine of stories.

[Michelle]

Some of the stories in this collection are better than others, but there is not a true dud in the book. Almost every story is well written and entertaining and some stories I wish were longer. I recommend it for an "in-between-other-books read."

[Marilyn]

Best thing about this book is that the stories are so short, just right for snoozing in the hammock. Since some of the stories are so old as to be unintelligible, you can skip over them and not feel like you missed anything.

[¿Lôre?]

really weird and random stories

[Linda Fast]

A book that is easily put down as most stories are just a page or two. Some of the stories were interesting and others I just plain did not understand.

[R. David]

As in all collections, some good, some not so good.

[Ch J Loveall]

my quest for new authors continues (found Wayne D. Dundee)

[Alex]

I think this is one of those books best read over a long period of time. Something to pick up every once in a while, or read one story every few days. Otherwise the stories start to blend together and get kind of repetitive.