PARTNERS IN CRIME

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Some of my favorite partners in crime are Ellery and his dad, Sherlock and his doctor friend, and that old married couple, Nick and Nora, but I’m currently reading Partners in Crime, an anthology edited by my friend, Elaine Raco Chase. I first met Elaine when she was beginning her reign as National President resident of Sisters in Crime. As her host during a writer’s conference, I found her to be charming as well as a wealth of information concerning writing. Elaine began her writing career in Category Romance, but by the time we met, she was ensconced in writing Romantic Suspense. It was her affiliation with Sisters in Crime and her nonfiction book for writers, Amateur Detectives, (published in 1996) with Anne Wingate, Ph.D., that captured my attention.

The premise of Partners in Crime, a short story anthology, is pairing great mystery writers with the theme of “it takes two” to untangle the mystery. The book’s lineup is impressive and consists of stories by:

• Jay Brandon, “Death Sentence”
• Barbara D’Amato, “Soon to be a Minor Motion Picture”
• Sharyn McCrumb, “Old Rattler”
• Michael Collins, “A Matter of Character”
• Carolyn G. Hart, “An Almost Perfect Heist”
• Ed Gorman, “Seasons of the Heart”
• Margaret Maron & Susan Dunlap, “What’s a Friend For”
• William Bernhardt, “The Partner Track”
• J. A. Jance, “Oil and Water”
• Bill Crider1, “See What the Boys in the Locked Room Will Have”
• Jan Grape, “No Simple Solution”

This isn’t a “new” book (it was published in 1994), but the stories inside make it worth a trip to find this paperback version. In my opinion, finding “new-to-me” short story collections is like finding a treasure hidden in plain sight on a musty bookshelf. (HINT: They’re also discovered online just waiting to be purchased. When the package arrives, it’s almost like Christmas unwrapping it.)

Eleven stories to be read in those moments we need to suspend – for a while anyway – what’s going on out there in the real world. For a few minutes, sit back and relax and read something that makes your heart beat just a bit faster, makes your mind work just a little harder to figure out the solution and makes you breathe easier when you’re happily reunited with your own personal partner in crime, the mystery writer.

1. Is any mystery writer’s list complete without a Bill Crider notation? [↩]