Maxim Jakubowski

“The Perfect Crime” is an all-original anthology of 22 crime stories “from diverse cultures around the world,” the idea being that crime fiction has largely been written by white authors featuring white characters, and this volume aims to challenge that hegemony. Fair enough, but it turns out that the “diverse cultures around the world” is almost entirely limited to the US and UK - by my count, 15 of the 22 stories here take place in those two countries, albeit with non-white characters and/or authors involved. That said, this anthology like many others is a mixed bag; some stories work well and others less well. As always with story collections, one reader’s favorites will not be the same as another’s. My particular favorites include Editor Vaseem Khan’s own entry, “Death in Darjeeling”; a lovely sort-of Bluebeard retelling, “The Beautiful Game” by Sanjida Kay; the very clever “The Yellow Line” by Ausma Zehanat Khan set in Toronto and confronting racist behavior in the subway and other public places; First Nations author Thomas King’s very funny “Chinook”; and Walter Mosley’s neo-science fiction story “Bring Me Your Pain.” I think the premise of the anthology is an excellent one, even if the execution was not all that it could be, and I plan to search out some of the other works of some of these authors, so I thank the editors for introducing me to these new voices; moderately recommended.… (meer)

4.5⭐️

The Perfect Crime is a unique selection of short stories (some longer than the others), featuring authors from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, revolving around themes of murder and mayhem, clandestine affairs, betrayals, hate crimes, corruption, blackmail and revenge.

From America to New Zealand and the UK to India, the settings for the stories are as varied as the stories themselves. We have a bouncer who discovers the identity of the person who murdered his girlfriend, the victim of hate crimes who decides to take matters into her own hands, a court reporter with a penchant for collecting buttons, a professional photographer who is roped in to take pictures of her boyfriend's child with his wife, an army veteran turned PI who discovers a human trafficking ring while driving through a “sundown town”, the mysterious death of a tutor of a prestigious school, wedding photographers who capture more than wedding photos on an assignment, a sheep farmer whose sheep are disappearing mysteriously, a young romance turned sour, a young woman dazzled by the attention of a celebrity sportsman only to find herself stranded in his home in a remote location, former bank robbers who have to hash out a mystery from their past, a prank by the graduating class of a military academy that triggers one of the administrator’s childhood phobias and trauma attached to the same and much more.

Edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Vaseem Khan this anthology features works by S.A. Cosby, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, J.P. Pomare Sulari Gentill, Nelson George, Rachel Howzell Hall, John Vercher, Sanjida Kay, Amer Anwar, Henry Chang, Nadine Matheson, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Abir Mukherjee, Sheena Kamal, Vaseem Khan, Mike Phillips, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Felicia Yap, Thomas King, Imran Mahmood, Walter Mosley and David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

Very rarely have I come across an anthology as impressive as this. I loved most of the stories and liked the rest. The narratives are crisp, well-paced and versatile in plot and characterization. While a few of them feature procedural crime-solving, others focus on the PoVs of the perpetrators or victims-turned-avengers. Not all these stories end on a tidy note , with many of them ambiguous leaving the reader guessing. My personal favorites were Ausma Zehanat Khan’s The Yellow Line, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Land of Milk and Honey, Vaseem Khan’s Death in Darjeeling, J.P.Pomare’s For Marg, Amer Anwar’s Quiet Night In and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Jumping Ship.

The Perfect Crime is an exquisitely curated selection of stories that kept me engaged till the very end. I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved discovering many new authors whose works I hope to explore further. If you are a fan of this genre , you wouldn't want to miss this one!… (meer)