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What do Tamar Myers, Nick Danger, Mike Resnick, and Diane Mott Davidson all have in common? Well, they all write mystery novels and all of them are represented in this anthology of short mystery stories edited by Claudia Bishop and Nick DiChario. Each story has a few common denominators. Every mystery focuses around a murder that takes place at 8:30 PM at dinner. Some stories have the murders at a big dinner party with many witnesses, another takes place when a man is eating alone with no witnesses, and one murder happens around a campfire with some homeless men. Each murder is different and it¼s nice to see how all the authors handle the requirements they were given. Another nice touch is that after each story the recipe for one of the „deadly¾ dishes served at the meal is given. I liked the basic bagel recipe at the end of David A. Kaufelt¼s „The Bagel Murders.¾ Even though he claims that New York water is not need for his recipe I have to disagree with him. Some of the stories are cute like „Even Butterflies Can Sting,¾ by Mike Resnick. This is a story about why you should avoid butterflies at a dinner affair. Tamar Myers¼ wonderful character, Magdalena Yoder, appears in „Chicken Catch A Tory,¾ a nice little story of what happens when British tourists come to visit her inn. Barbara D¼Amato has a great little twist at the end of her „Steak Tartare,¾ and Diane Mott Davidson¼s character, Goldy Bear, finds yet another dead body in her kitchen, As for the „mystery¾ part of the sixteen stories, well, that kind of falls short. Some of the stories end too quickly after a long build up, others have major flaws in them, and others aren¼t very clear on how the murderer was discovered. Even with the problems I found in the stories, I liked reading this anthology. I was able to see how authors I¼m familiar with wrote a mystery short story instead of the mystery novels that I¼m used to reading. It was also nice to discover some other mystery writers that I haven¼t read before. I also enjoyed the parameters that the author¼s were obviously given: each story had to have a murder happen at a certain hour, it had to happen around a dinner table, and a recipe had to be included. What¼s really nice is that many of the authors and the editors have agreed to donate their royalties to America¼s Second Harvest, an organization that feeds the hungry. Short story anthologies are a good way to introduce yourself to new authors and revisit favorites. DEATH DINES AT 8:30 doesn¼t fall short in this area.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, March 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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