Jim's Reviews > Deadly Anniversaries: A Collection of Stories from Crime Fiction's Top Authors

I started to write a bit about each story, but it was too difficult to do without spoilers. I'll just say they were good, one of the better collections, & the narrators were all very good. This celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Mystery Writers of America, so it's pretty close to perfect. Muller & Pronzini did a great job. Highly recommended.

A standout story was "The Anniversary Gift" by Jeffery Deaver. Not that it was much better than the others, but I generally don't care for his style & I really liked this one. Ditto for the Lee Child story since he didn't try to describe guns, their use, nor any injuries. (These are subjects he's apparently researched only in comic books.) He stuck to people & managed a good, thoughtful one. "Case Open" by Carolyn Hart was the story I liked the least. The setup wasn't bad, but the end fizzled unlike the other stories which had good twists.

Table of Contents
Introduction

"If You Want Something Done Right. . ." by Sue Grafton
"Ten Years On" by Laurie R. King
"Normal in Every Way" by Lee Child
"The Replacement" by Margaret Maron
"Chin Yong-Yun Sets the Date" by S. J. Rozan
"Amazing Grace" by Max Allan Collins

"Recipe: Lemon Layer Cake" I guess this is Grace's recipe from the story above.

"Ten Years, Two Days, Six Hours" by Wendy Hornsby
"The Anniversary Gift" by Jeffery Deaver
"The Last Dive Bar" by Bill Pronzini
"Case Open" by Carolyn Hart
"The Bitter Truth" by Peter Lovesey
"Unknown Caller" by Meg Gardiner
"April 13" by Marcia Muller
"Whodat Heist" by Julie Smith
"Blue Moon" by William Kent Krueger
"Aqua Vita" by Peter Robinson
"The Last Hibakusha" by Naomi Hirahara
"30 and Out" by Doug Allyn
"The Fixer" by Alison Gaylin and Laura Lippman