Sounds of Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski, Mark Billingham (Editor), Lawrence Block

A collection of five short stories by some of the best crimewriters around.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Mystery, Short Stories, Crime, Detective

3 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 2010

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

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being short stories they were a nice easy listen. Mostly rather predictable, especially the first one. The last story was the best - more unexpected, and fully fitted the brief of being to do with sound.

[The Book Squirrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. Some of the stories were better than others.
I liked Dolly's Trash and Treasures (the first one), Happy Holidays (third one) and The Deceivers (last one). I'm glad the stories had different narrators, too, as it helped to differentiate the stories.

Dolly's Trash and Treasures by Laurence Block. A hoarder muses on her "treasures" and her life as the welfare agency cleans out her house. They find a dead cat, and then more than a dead cat. It's predictable, but a good listen. I liked the different characters and Dolly's musings, which you sometimes weren't sure if they were in her head or spoken out loud to the welfare agency people. I would have liked to know the cause of death.

Meet Me at the Crematorium by Peter James. I didn't really get the ending of this. I get that she killed her husband and Haans helped her dispose of the body, but was the end a threat that she'd kill him, too?

Happy Holidays by Val McDermid. I liked this one. It was a good quick mystery which made sense and had closure.

The Walls by Mark Billingham. Not sure about this one. It's probably a story about why you shouldn't have one night stands.

The Deceivers by Christopher Fowler. This was a good one. I liked the narration and the point of view the story is told from. I'd like to know what happened!

[Andy Rausch · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mediocre collection of crime stories, some of which aren't really even "crime" fiction. If I told you that Lawrence Block's story steals the show, you wouldn't be surprised at all because Block is the master, so I won't say it. But Block's story is comprised entirely of dialogue--wonderful Block-ian dialogue--and he does amazing things with it. Even his story feels a bit incomplete, but it's still good and miles ahead of the others.

[Andrea (mrsaubergine) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The last story by Christopher Fowler was the creepiest and by far the best representation of the theme of 'sound'. I'll definitely be looking up his other work. The other stories in this collection were okay, with the crematorium one my least favourite.

[Kristie Kirkpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the stories were extremely well written. Some were just not to my taste. Especially liked Val McDermid's Tony Hill story

[Lise · Rating 1 out of 5]

Listened to these as I love be Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series. Did not like any of these stories.

[Hazel Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each story is so different from the other and I found them all so gripping that I had to stop what I was doing to focus on each one. The narrators did a brilliant job bring these stories to life.

[☆Ruth☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good short stories.

[Mandy Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audio book- This was so good I wish there were more stories on it! I liked all the stories,and the narrators were all very good.

[Jlnpeacock Peacock · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed a couple of the stories, but some of the others were nothing I would look up the authors to read further works.

[Joyce Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed all stories in this book. The stories were well written and suspenseful; character development well done and narrators spot on. I researched the authors and will read their books.

[Bronwyn Hegarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this series of short crime stories on audio. The one about hoarding was my favourite. Light and entertaining stories.

[Ali McConnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only really decent story was the last one by Christopher Fowler, what a talent he was!

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uniformly very high quality both in terms of stories and reading.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

These short stories were incredibly enjoyable and haunting.
Only available as an audiobook and not published elsewhere, it was a great opportunity to hear stories from some great authors.
Highly recommended.

[Osvaldo Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cinco historias cortas. Todas excelentes, escritas por expertos en el género. Mis favoritas: "Los tesoros y la basura de Dolly" (tensión que va en aumento. Uno sospecha lo que va a pasar, pero no por eso la sorpresa golpea con menos fuerza), "Felices fiestas" (un misterio de Val McDermid con su psicólogo Tony Hill. Si saben de quien hablo, no necesito dar más explicaciones) y "Los Embaucadores" (una trágica parodia que no deja de sonar a la realidad de nuestros días). Me gustaron. Recomendada.

[Lilly Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore a good story.... I especially adore a good story that is so chilling/moving/compelling that it stays with you for awhile. I'm a massive Val McDermid fan and that's why I initially read this collection of short stories written especially for this publication. Now that I've read it all I have to say - the story I enjoyed most was not even by the author who made me read this....

Let me just be very clear - there is NO bad story in this collection and I'll read them all over and over and OVER again!

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

c2010: Apparently only available as an audible book, this was a fairly quick listen. As with most anthologies, some stories were better than others but I think the story set in America was the best of the lot. None of the stories had a twist that you couldn't see coming for miles but perhaps that in itself was the twist. Anyway, I enjoyed it well enough to be able to recommend to the normal crew.

[Any Length · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun book of short crime stories that were rather enjoyable. An easy read, idea for a short to medium length flight or a sunny afternoon on the hammock.

[Lakes Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy listening selection of crime stories - heard as an audio book.