Tag: crime

#BlogTour #BookReview Music of the Night edited by Martin Edwards @RandomTTours @FlameTreePress

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Music Night (2) BT PosterWelcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Music of the Night, the latest anthology of original short stories by members of the Crime Writers’ Association, edited by Martin Edwards. My thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour and to Flame Tree Press for my digital review copy. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today, Amanda at The Butler Did It.

Final Music of the Night CoverAbout the Book

Music of the Night is a new anthology of original short stories contributed by Crime Writer’s Association (CWA) members and edited by Martin Edwards, with music as the connecting theme. The aim, as always, is to produce a book which is representative both of the genre and the membership of the world’s premier crime writing association.

The CWA has published anthologies of members’ stories in most years since 1956 with Martin Edwards as editor for over 25 years during which time the anthologies have yielded many award-winning and nominated stories by writers such as Ian Rankin, Reginald Hill, Lawrence Block and Edward D. Hoch.

Stories by long-standing authors and stellar names sit alongside contributions from relative newcomers, authors from overseas, and members whose work haven’t appeared in a CWA anthology before. Among the gifted stars of today whose fiction featured in a CWA anthology at an early stage of their crime writing careers are Mick Herron, Frank Tallis and Sarah Hilary. It isn’t a closed shop, and never has been.

The CWA (Crime Writers’ Association) was founded in 1953 by John Creasey and organises the prestigious CWA Dagger Awards which celebrate the best in crime writing. The CWA is a pro-active, thriving and ever-expanding community of writers based in the UK but with a reach that extends worldwide.

Format: Hardcover (288 pages)            Publisher: Flame Tree Press
Publication date: 22nd February 2022 Genre: Crime, Short Stories

Find Music of the Night on Goodreads

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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

The contributors to this anthology are a positive Who’s Who of contemporary crime fiction and much of the fun is seeing how each author responds to the theme of music.  In some of the stories the musical element is in the background, for example as a setting for a crime.  In others it is the key (pardon the pun) to the whole structure of the story.  A particularly good example of the latter is the story by Ragnar Jónasson who instructs that it should be read while listening to 4’33” by John Cage. I also really enjoyed ‘The Melody of Murder’ by Antony M Brown in which the killer’s trademark is creating crime scenes which resemble famous album covers.  Perhaps my favourite story was ‘Love Me Or Leave Me: A Fugue in G Minor’ by Art Taylor, a strange and rather unsettling story based around a fragment of melody that apparently no-one else can hear.

I always admire authors who can create really taut short stories and some great examples in the collection are ‘Mix Tape’ by Cath Staincliffe, ‘Taxi!’ by Chris Simms, ‘Violin – CE’ by David Stuart Davies and ‘A Vulture Sang in Berkeley Square’. I also enjoyed being introduced in short story form to some crime series I’ve heard of but haven’t read such as Vaseem Khan’s Malabar House series.

There is something for everyone in the collection whether you’re a fan of historical crime, police procedural or noir – or perhaps I should say whether your playlist contains classical music, pop, rock, jazz… or even silence. Whichever is the case, I can safely say that Music of the Night contains no bum notes.

In three words: Inventive, engaging, witty

Try something similar: Mystery Tour edited by Martin Edwards

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Martin EdwardsAbout the Editor

Martin Edwards is the author of eighteen novels, including the Lake District Mysteries, and the Harry Devlin series. His ground-breaking genre study The Golden Age of Murder has won the Edgar, Agatha and H.R.F. Keating awards. He has edited twenty eight crime anthologies, has won the CWA Short Story Dagger and the CWA Margery Allingham Prize, and is series consultant for the British Library’s Crime Classics. In 2015, he was elected eighth President of the Detection Club, an office previously held by G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

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Music Night (1) BT Poster

#BookReview Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

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Blue Shoes and HappinessAbout the Book

Mma Ramotswe is happily married to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, but her work seems more hectic than ever. Among the raft of cases coming the way of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency are blackmail, witchcraft and theft, all calling for the wisdom of a traditionally built detective.

It’s enough to make her wonder what the secret of happiness is, and whether she is right to find it in small things such as a pair of blue shoes, a slice of cake, or a red sunset over Kalahari.

Format: Paperback (250 pages)        Publisher: Abacus
Publication date:  13th March 2007 Genre: Crime

Find Blue Shoes and Happiness on Goodreads

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Bookshop.org
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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

Blue Shoes and Happiness is the seventh book in the author’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. I was an avid reader of the series when it began but somehow other books got in the way and I’m now way behind as the author has just published book twenty-two in the series and there is another one on the way in 2022!  Although for sheer enjoyment ideally you’d want to read from the beginning, I think it’s possible to come to the series at any point as the author is skilled at unobtrusively incorporating background details about the characters and previous events.

For my part, it was a complete delight to be reunited with the lovely main characters: the ‘traditionally built’ Mma Ramotswe, her gentle husband Mr. J. L. B. Maketoni (only Mma Ramotswe knows what those initials stand for) and Mma Makutsi, Mma Ramotswe’s assistant, whose love of shoes gives the book its title.

Mma Ramotswe’s down-to-earth wisdom and pithy observations contribute to the book’s gentle humour. Her keen eye for detail and ability to get people to talk are a key part of her success as a private detective, along with the guidance to be found in her cherished reference book, The Principles of Detection by Clovis Anderson. Frequent cups of her favourite bush tea also help in solving the cases that come to her. As Mma Ramotswe observes, ‘Most problems could be diminished by the drinking of tea and the thinking through of things that could be done while tea was being drunk. And even if that did not solve problems, at least it could put them off for a little while, which we sometimes needed to do, we really did’.  

One of the things that has endeared so many people to the series, including me, is the way in which the author’s love and admiration for Botswana – the country and its people – shines through the stories. Often it’s through family links that Mma Ramtoswe makes her breakthroughs. As described in the book, the ‘Botswana way’ is built on ‘ties of kinship, no matter how attentuated by distance or time, [that] linked one person to another, weaving across the country a human blanket of love and community. And in the fibres of that blanket there were threads of obligation that meant that one could not ignore the claims of others’. I think we could all do with a human blanket of love and community in present times.

Blue Shoes and Happiness is the sort of book that leaves you with a warm feeling at the end. ‘Happiness was an elusive thing. It had something to do with having beautiful shoes, sometimes; but it was about so much else. About a country. About a people.’ Does Mma Ramotswe solve the raft of cases she’s faced with in the book? Of course she does, and in ways that only she can.

In three words: Charming, humorous, uplifting

Try something similar: Madam Tulip by David Ahern

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Alexander McCall Smith

About the Author

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over one hundred books on a wide array of subjects, including the award-winning The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. He is also the author of the Isabel Dalhousie novels and the world’s longest-running serial novel, 44 Scotland Street. His books have been translated into forty-six languages.

Alexander McCall Smith is Professor Emeritus of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and holds honorary doctorates from thirteen universities. (Photo: Goodreads author page)

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