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(More customer reviews)The film, "Fatal Attraction," features a dangerous woman - lethal, in fact. "The Maltese Falcon's" Brigid O'Shaughnessy is certainly a hazard. "What makes a woman dangerous?" Is she irresistible? Seductive? Does she wound with her eyes? Is she a femme fatale, "aware of her power, or utterly innocent of it?" Otto Penzler, editor, bookseller, and founder of Mysterious Press, asks this question in his Introduction to this short fiction anthology, "Dangerous Women." The answer is subjective - a matter of opinion. Seventeen outstanding authors, some of the best writers in the mystery/suspense genre, answer the question here, creatively, diabolically, deliciously. Lying, manipulation, seduction, horror, murder, secretiveness, suicide - they're all covered in these stories. "Dangerous Women" is an outstanding, wicked, absolutely amazing collection. Consistent excellence is what makes this book so special and sets it apart from the rest. Ed McBain, Michael Connelly, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Perry, Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley, Laura Lippman, Nelson DeMille, Thomas Cook, Andrew Klaven, John Connolly, Lorenzo Carcaterra, J. A. Jance, Jay McInerey, S. J. Rozen, Jeffrey Deaver and Ian Ranki, are all at their best here.
In Ed McBain's "Improvisation," a man approaches a tall, willowy blonde at a bar and asks her - "So, what do we do for a little excitement tonight?" The woman, a stranger, suggests, "Why don't we kill somebody?" Their mating ritual lightens up, but only momentarily. Michael Connelly's Detective Harry Bosch, says, in "Cielo Azul," that his LAPD partner always believed "the most dangerous women are beautiful in life, heartbreaking in death." "A black and silver diamond-headed spider, the so-called 'happy spider,' " who spins her web with venom, is Joyce Carol Oates' kind of woman in "Give Me Your Heart." Talk about a woman scorned! Walter Mosley's "Karma" loved somebody so much she'd die for him. "Rendezvous," Nelson DeMille's first short story in twenty-five years, takes you into a sweltering Vietnamese jungle where the most lethal enemy is not a man at all. Ian Rankin writes about a prison warden fascinated by the steamy prison mail he censors in "Soft Spot." Jeffrey Deaver's "Born Bad" is chilling! Every one of these stories is a gem, along with those I have not mentioned.
This is the perfect book to take on a trip....or on the train to work...or for reading during lunch hour. You can read a short story as satisfying as any novel, and put the book down without feeling that you have left at a crucial moment in the narrative. You can read selectively, or read only one story at a time. They are all winners. "Dangerous Women" is probably the best and most exciting mystery anthology I have ever come across. Highly recommended!
JANA
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