I’m not a big fan of romance fiction but I read the 12 stories full of amorous mystery with a dollop of fear in Murder Most Romantic (2001) in the run-up to Valentine’s Day. My favorite story is “Twelve Days” which involves an Elon Musk-type genius who has threatened to release a viral code that will incapacity nearly every computer in the world. A talented woman hacker goes into the virtual reality world where the culprit is hiding in the attempt to stop the disaster.
Some of the stories feature stalkers. Other stories mix charm with deadly intensions. If you enjoy romance stories mixed with suspense, you’ll like this anthology of passion and menace. GRADE: C+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction / Denise Little — 7
Homicidal honeymoon / Laura Resnick — 9
Scottish ploy / P. N. Elrod — 29
www.gonnahavekelly.com / Diane A. S. Stuckart — 47
Perfect man / Kristine Kathryn Rushch — 71
Celtic cross / Yvonne Jocks — 107
Hostage to love / Mary Watson — 123
Dizzy and the biker / Susan Sizemore — 145
Night hawks / Jody Lynn Nye — 169
Keeper of the well / Deb Stover — 181
Dearly beloved / D. R. Meredith — 201
Show must go on / Nessa Hart — 217
Twelve days / Laura Hayden — 235
Authors’ Biographies — 255
Copyrights & Permissions — 271
I’ve always said romance is murder!
Bob, romance is murder in MURDER MOST ROMANTIC!
I recognize only five of the authors’ names, and have maybe read two of them. Not necessarily a bad thing — I’m always on the lookout for new authors — but are very typical of many of Greenberg’s original anthologies, where the quality of these unknown-to-me authors is low. I’ll keep buying and reading these anthologies because occasionally I find pure gold. As a rule, though, his mainly-reprint anthologies show a far more considered selection. (But Greenberg did edit well over a thousand anthologies, so maybe I should cut him some slack.)
Jerry, I agree with your Greenberg assessment. With over a 1000 anthologies, Greenberg occasionally included some duds.
More than occasionally, and the mechanized production led to weird errors such as a FANTASTIC UNIVERSE story in his survey anthology from FANTASTIC. (THE BEST FROM THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY featuring a story from HARPER’S sort of thing.)
Todd, Greenberg’s 1000+ anthologies have an occasional gaffe, but on the whole Greenberg’s books are well-done.
The better co-editors often helped. The reprints did tend to outclass the new fiction, definitely.
Todd, I think the co-editors were the key to the 1000+ anthologies. No one editor could grasp the totality of stories available.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is the one I’ve read and liked in this group, but a C+ from George (Easy Grader) Kelley is NOT a good sign.
Jeff, of Greenberg’s MURDER MOST series, I found this volume the weakest.
I’ll add this to my tbr. I like romantic-suspense—and what better time than Valentine’s Day?
Deb, that’s what I thought! Romantic suspense for Valentine’s Day!