Cheap Murder Among Friends (Book) (Adams Rouns Table) Price

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Customer Reviews of Murder Among Friends

Great mix of mysteries.
This book, the sixth collection of short stories from a mystery writer's group, is a mixed bag of candy and cardboard. With no wonders of style or brilliance of plot, it's still a good read. In this world, of course, somebody's always got a secret. It starts with Lawrence Block's gritty, compassionate cop, a guy I'd like to meet at a party: "I don't remember what she was wearing, but I'm sure she looked good in it. She always did." As a favor to a friend, he's called in to deal with the awkwardness when a card game ends with a stabbing. He manages to hide everybody's dirty laundry, including his own, and still be a decent man. The book ends with a nasty, preachy little mess by Whitley Strieber, but along the way we also get Dorothy Salisbury Davis's story of small-town intrigue. The narrator is a lawyer with a healthy skepticism about his fellow citizens, such as the coroner who "had a doctor-of-medicine degree, which I guess entitles you to work on dead people if that's your preference." And, naturally, the wandering preacher who brings a hidden agenda to the town. From Mickey Friedman we get skullduggery among the spinsters at the Estelle Peavy Residence for Women. The heroine takes time out from her epic poem about Cape St. Sebastian, Florida, to find out where Gigi the stripper disappeared to. In Judith Kelman's story we eavesdrop on six women hell-bent on sweet, gruesome revenge on a con-man Lothario (unless perhaps one of them breaks a nail). And we get Justin Scott's sweet tale of a cat trying to save his lady-love's kitten from a fierce blizzard and a predatory owl.

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Super mystery anthology
The sixth anthology from the Adams Round Table, a group of mystery writers who meet monthly to discuss their trade, is the usual superb book. The short stories center on the relationships between friends/neighbors and crime. The contributors are eleven stars such as Higgins, Block, Isaacs, and Kelman. Each story stands on its own yet adds to the overall theme of the book.

The Adams Round Table series of books is always top-notch entertainment and this year's edition may be the best of the lot. Each story is well written and exciting while leaving the reader thinking about how far one goes for a friend. This reviewer still wonders what took me so long to join the short story bandwagon that has forced a scramble to find earlier works including some of the previous editions of this powerful anthology.

Harriet Klausner