The Mammoth Book of Comic Crime

by Peter Lovesey (Editor), Peter Lovesey, Nicholas Blincoe

This anthology features old and new comedy crime writing in an explosive barrel of wit and wisecracking, featuring cack-handed villians, accident-prone good guys and a host of criminal characters who range from deadpan to dead stupid.

Genres: Short Stories, Anthologies, Crime

Paperback

First published June 10, 2002

About the author

Peter Harmer Lovesey, also known by his pen name Peter Lear, was a British writer of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detective based in London, and Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath. He was also one of the world's leading track and field statisticians.

Reviews

[Alfrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find I do enjoy a good crime short story. My main reads seem to be in this category.
I picked this book up a few years back and finally got around to it.
I've enjoyed these quirky stories. A bit of humour with the crime and mayhem never hurt nobody.
These stories take place all over England. Some of that humour is of the Brit variety, naturally.
The book is chockablock with short stories, some better than others. I guess that is natural with a collection.
Anyway, I'm enjoying these ditties with each read. I would recommend it to anyone with a Brit slant on humour.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the majority of short stories in this volume, there were only about 3 that made me laugh. So overall good stories, misleading marketing....

[Missmath144 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Donald Westlake's "Come Again" -- pretty good
Nicholas Blincoe's "My Mother Was a Bank Robber" -- not very good
Jack Adrian's "The Absolute and Utter Impossibility of the Facts of the Vanishing of Henning Voli" -- a closed-room mystery in which the contortionist flushes himself down the toilet
Mark Twain's "Double Barrelled Mystery" - very good

[Anam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe I don't know what 'comic' means, but I had high expectations from this book and all the stories are...dumb? Only liked 'Malice in Blunderland' and 'Tickled to Death', though they do not fall under my category of Comic Crimes. None of them do.

[Batsap · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think any of these stories even made me smile a little bit.

[NONATION · Rating 5 out of 5]