Classic Crimes of Passion : Short Stories of Crimes Passionnels and Murder

by Louisa May Alcott, Wilkie Collins

A selection of fictional murders committed by reason of love and hate - crimes passionnel. Stories: Mad / de Maupassant First Hate / Algernon Blackwood A Double Tragedy / Louisa M. Alcott Inside Information / Stephen Phillips Who Killed Zebedee? / Wilkie Collins

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Crime, Fiction

Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.
Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.
Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.

Reviews

[Kristi Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘There’s first love. There’s first hate, too.’

This collection of short stories based on crimes of passion was a fun listen.

1. MAD by Guy de Maupassant This is a story of love, lust and madness told from an older husband's point of view towards his younger wife who he suspects of infidelity as his jealousy gets out of hand.

2.First Hate by Algernon Blackwood is an interesting tale of a man's description of a hatred that drives him to murder in order to obtain love. This is a cool story.

3.Inside Information by Stephen Phillips tells of a policeman finding a murderer in a boarding house that was poisoned by someone at the house. An interesting take on the classic murder story.

4. A Double Tragedy by Louisa May Alcott. This is a perfect description of a pot boiler and one that reminded me of Professor Baer telling Jo "to write what you know". It's a very "over the top" story with murder and suicide with a troop of actors performing Romeo and Juliet.

5. Who Killed Zebedee? by Wilkie Collins This was an enjoyable mystery of another murder in a boarding house, this one with a rookie policeman's first chance at solving a murder. The wife wakes up screaming, "I stabbed my husband in my sleep!" But, did she really?

This was a fun listen read by Derek Jacobi who played Claudius in "I, Claudius" on PBS years ago.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Featuring:
"Mad" by Guy de Maupassant - 8/10 incel before incels were cool
The jealous husband/boyfriend/lover (it's not made clear which) kills his wife because he's mad she has hobbies, basically. She enjoys horseback riding too much.

"First Hate" by Algernon Blackwood - 10/10, my favorite of the bunch, the OG hater
This one is just a really cool concept. Instead of love at first sight, it's hate at first sight, and the narrator is determined to kill a random dude he's never met before.

"A Double Tragedy" by Louisa May Alcott - good but not memorable since I'm reviewing it a week late and don't remember anything
Reminded me of Black Swan (2010) because of how she dies at the end.

"Inside Information" by Stephen Phillips - meh
Not bad, but not very exciting. He knows who killed someone because he knows how the people in the house take their tea.

"Who Killed Zebedee?" by Wilkie Collins - 6/10
Cold case is solved because the guy got lucky and looks in just the right knife shop, finds out what the unfinished engraving was supposed to be.

[drowningmermaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

As ever, anthologies are incredibly hard to rate.

Mad by de Maupassant was good. Kind of reminiscent of Poe’s “Berenice.” In its creation of a toxic, dangerous relationship. But in this case it isn’t a physical feature that the mad narrator wants, but rather every moment of joy.

First Hate was actually the most memorable. Algernon Blackwood creates an effortless, inadvertently brilliant work of stunning, multi-layered and complex racism that makes the collection worth reading just for the haunting , Joyce Carol Oates style ending of this one piece. This is the work I’d want adapted by Jordan Peele.

A Double Tragedy by Louisa M. Alcott was classic maudlin histrionic fare— not bad for its ilk, and almost tongue in cheek it takes itself so seriously.

Inside Information by Stephen Phillips — was unremarkable. Sort of Agatha Christie-ish, but fairly obvious.

Who Killed Zebedee? by Wilkie Collins… another one I don’t have much to say on. Happenstance gives an investigator clue he would never have otherwise gotten, and he becomes involved in a cover-up. Told in the style of a death bed confession.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bearing in mind that I rarely enjoy short stories, some of these were entertaining enough. I had intended to listen to this audiobook on Halloween. In any case, it was a reasonably amusing collection of murder stories. The odd thing is that even though it’s a compilation of stories by several authors, there are lots of story elements that are the same in several stories. I can’t say they were super gripping or earth-shattering, or even super well-written, but the stories were fine for a quick seasonal read.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derek Jacobi tells these stories with just the right emotion and fervour to keep one listening late into the night, long after a reasonable bedtime. My favourite is the last one - the Wilkie Collins - but each of them deal with a moral struggle of some kind. Or, perhaps, an amoral struggle.

[Jennifer He · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short 3 hour audiobook. I thoroughly enjoyed the horse girl story

[Sher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed listening to these short stories. They are written by various authors and are about murders committed because of some passionate reason, mostly because of a love situation. I have to admit that I had to listen twice in order to get everything. The fact is, I am finding that most audible books are much better the second time around. These stories were very well written in each case (there are about five stories), but the narration is really what made this experience for me. Derek Jacobi is without a doubt my number one favorite narrator. I can't say enough good about him. I have a few books on my shelf I would like him to read.

[Trish · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give this 1/4 of a star, I would. This book was boring and mundane. It is very unusual for me to not finish a book even if I think it is horrible because I am no quitter. I couldn't stick with this. It was a snooze fest.

[David Cerruti · Rating 2 out of 5]

These five stories seemed mediocre at best. Perhaps they were better, but crimes of passion and murder just aren’t my cup of tea. The reading by Derek Jacobi was quite good.

[Rebecca Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing special but a break from the heavier reading I was doing at the time.