Love and Death

by Various

Love and mystery combine in a romantic anthology of fourteen original whodunits from Dorothy Cannell, Caroyn Hart, Nancy Pickard, Gar Anthony Haywood, Peter Robinson, Eve Sandstrom, Ed Gorman, Margaret Maron, Jean Hager, Robert J. Randisi, M. D. Lake, Susan Dunlap, Marilyn Wallace, and Kathy Hogan Trocheck. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 20, 2000

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[Ceelee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carolyn Hart is one of my favorite mystery writers. I especially love the Death Obn Demand series because I like reading books where books are talked about within their pages plus she writes a darn good story! I was thrilled to find this short story collection edited by Hart published in 2001 and to me it is a winner all the way! The theme of the collection is "While love may be blind, it can still aim straight for the heart." There are 14 stories in the collection and some of my favorite authors were included like Dorothy Cannell, Margaret Maron, Nancy Pickard and Hart herself. Everyone else was new to me and I want to read more by them like Peter Robinson, Susan Dunlap and Marilyn Wallace. All the authors are members of Sisters In Crime and/or Mystery Writers of America. There was not one story I did not like as all were well written, with twists and turns and interesting characters and settings. One particularly heartbreaking story was "April In Paris" by Peter Robinson but the first story is "Bridal Flowers", a dark comedy by Dorothy Cannell while the final story, "The Collaboration" by Marilyn Wallace is so suspenseful it wil make you wish there was more. Hart's own story "Secrets" was so well developed it was like reading one of her novels. I am not sure if the book is still in print but if you enjoy mystery short stories and you run across it somewhere buy it. This has got to be one of the best consistently good mystery anthologies I have ever read.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carolyn Hart, who edited Love and Death, describes the book as "a chilling exploration of love sought, love found, love lost." This is a generally quite good anthology.

My favorite story here is "Secrets," written by Hart herself. It is a sequel to another excellent story, "Spooked." Other stories I particularly like are "April in Paris" by Peter Robinson and "Till 3:45" by Margaret Maron.

The only story I don't like is "A Girl Like You" by the generally excellent author Ed Gorman.

And then we come to one more story, "Love at First Byte" by Kathy Hogan Trochek. This is a pretty good story with one big problem; it is extremely similar to a story by John D. MacDonald from 1949. MacDonald's story was originally published in the magazine Black Mask in March, 1949 under the title "Killing All Men!" It later appeared in a collection of MacDonald's stories, More Good Old Stuff, in 1984 as "Deadly Damsel." I don't think I am imagining how similar the two stories are but I couldn't find any reference to anyone else saying this.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I check out this audio book because it had a short story by Margaret Maron and because it have "Love" in the title, which covers a PopSugar challenge prompt. I remember generally liking the stories, but it's been long enough ago that I can't recall the specifics.

[Humbledaisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is such a mixed bag. Some great, most bleh. Many indecipherable. Although some of the listed authors may be popular, just skip this book.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a compilation of short stories edited by Carolyn Hart. I found it to be somewhat dated (pre 2000). Remember when we were all focused on Y2K? Now it seems like ancient history doesn't it. Anyway I always date a book by the fact that they have to find a pay phone to make a call. Does anyone else do that? I did find some new authors though that I thought wrote with an interesting style (just what I needed -- More authors to read!!! I gave it 3 stars.

[Susan Welkie]

great