Cynthia Manson

This collection consists of crime/ mystery short stories that (a) were written by women and (b) feature female detectives. All of the stories originally had appeared in either Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. With one exception, the stories were published between the late 1970s and 1990.

I found the stories to be, on the whole, uninteresting and of ordinary to mediocre quality. While any such collection is bound to be mixed in nature, in Women of Mystery #1 none of the stories stood out to me in quality -- this despite the inclusion of various respectable names in crime fiction (Rendell, Fraser, Clark, Paretsky).

One of those that I ranked the highest (3 stars) was "A Little More Research" (by Joan Hess), a clever one whose text consists of the attempts at writing by a prospective author who is constantly interrupted... and whose resultant crime is documented in her prose. Another one I'd ranked at this level was a contribution from Mary Higgins Clark from 1958, a suspense story in which a stewardess helps smuggle a young political dissident out of a country aboard the airline on which she serves.

Below are the stories included, with my rankings (on a scale of zero to 5 *s).

"Stowaway" (by Mary Higgins Clark): 3*
"Constitution Street" (by Janet Stockey) 1*
"A Pair of Yellow Lilies" (by Ruth Rendell) 1*
"Discards" (by Faye Kellerman) 0*
"The Girl Who Wanted to See Venice" (by Antonia Fraser) 2.5*
"Chain of Terror" (by Patricia McGerr) 3*
"Tania's No Where" (by Amanda Cross) 0*
"Old Friends" (by Salisbury Davis) 1*
"A Case for Clara Cates" (by Carolyn Jensen Watts) 1*
"Guilt Feelings" (by Celia Fremlin) 2.5*
"A Little More Research" (by Joan Hess) 3*
"The Upstairs Flat" (by Elizabeth A. Dalton) 2*
"The Takamoku Joseki" (by Sara Paretsky) 1.5*
"Digby's First Case" (by Anne Perry) 1.5*
"Night Vision" (by BK Stevens) 1.5*… (more)

Although short stories aren't my favorite format for crime/mystery fiction, I like to read the occasional anthology. I've discovered a few authors I enjoy that way. Most of the authors in this collection were already well known to me – Margery Allingham, Dorothy Sayers, Michael Innes, Christianna Brand, Ruth Rendell. The biggest surprise to me is a story by P. G. Wodehouse. I had no idea he wrote any crime/mystery pieces. His “Strychnine in the Soup,” Dorothy Sayers' “The Necklace of Pearls,” and E. C. Bentley's “The Ministering Angel” are among the better stories in this volume. This collection will appeal to fans of classic British mysteries.… (more)