Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations Paperback – March 19, 2013

Wide range of authors and styles. Title pretty well defines the book. Cover is a little bit much. Good place to find new authors.

As a preface to this review, let me say that I wish Amazon allowed half-stars. I wanted to give this exactly 2.5 out of 5, since it is that average. Moving on...We'll begin on a positive note. There are a few good, standout stories here. Neil Gaiman is always great and his Sherlock Holmes story here does not disappoint. Lillian Stewart Carl's "The Necromancer's Apprentice" is by turns mysterious and hilarious. Joe R. Lansdale channels William Hope Hodgson replacing the venerable Carnacki with a young woman who acts and speaks just like him in "The Case of the Stalking Shadow." Bradley Denton's "The Adakian Eagle" is a great little wartime novella. Caitlin R. Keirnan serves up weird, erotic noir in "The Maltese Unicorn." Finally "Fox Tails" by Richard Parks, set in medieval Japan, is a welcome break in setting from the 20th & 21st century urban landscapes which most of these stories take place, and was good enough to make me rush out to order a whole collection of stories about the main character.Now on to the criticism. Although there are a few middling stories among those not listed above, many of them were a bit of a chore at times and nearly a third are indistinguishable save for the details. Out of the 23 stories in this anthology, around 8 could be summarized as "A (detective/bounty hunter/private investigator), who is secretly a (vampire/werewolf/wizard/witch), tracks down a criminal that turns out to be a (vampire/werewolf/wizard/witch)". There is a lot of derivative urban fantasy pastiche here, and it probably isn't worth wading through it all like I did.

Getting old is heck. I know I have read this before, and perhaps in another compilation. But I downloaded it on my kindle and the last time might have been a paper book. So bottom line is this: make sure you have not read it before. It might be new to you. The good news is that I am reading it again because it has a lot of good authors and memory being what it is (or isn't), I can enjoy it again. I just finished Simon Green's short story and I knew I had read it, but did not recall the murderer before the last page. Hah! Bad memory isn't all bad!

This was an excellently choreographed collection of shirt stories depicting the best of the occult, fantastical, and phatasmagoric in hard boiled detective fiction. I am a fan of we'll written urban fantasy, especially that which revolves around detectives with magical predilections. Unfortunately, the genre suffers from a lack of good story telling and an over abundance of copy cat plots and repetitive hackneyed plagiarism of Celtic myth. This collection, however, shows that there is promise in the genre still. If you enjoy urban fantasy, the paranormal, and/or detective fiction, give this a try. It's an excellent cross section of the best this mixed hybrid of genres has to offer and you won't be disappointed.

I like supernatural detective anthologies. I enjoyed Murder By Magic and Supernatural Sleuths and was excited to see Weird Detectives. I ordered for a plane trip and was really looking forward to reading the stories. This feeling didn’t make it through the first story. One of the reasons I ordered it was I saw that Jim Butcher, Simon R Green and P.N. Elrod had all contributed. I am not sure about the Elrod story, but the Simon R. Green and the Jim Butcher has appeared in other anthologies and I had read both of them previously. I have only read through the first nine stories and the only reason I made it that far was I was on a plane with nothing else to read. Most of the stories that I have read so far are, frankly, boring. Maybe the authors will get better. I haven’t gotten to the Elrod story yet so that may get better. But I don't know how long it will take me to get back to this book Life is too short to spend on boring books.This was not worth $6.99

Not a poor story in the group. This book was very entertaining, each story presenting a variation on the common elements of the supernatural and crime. High quality editing, pacing, dialogue, and both fun and life lessons presented in equal measure.

I used to be a strictly SF fan but since LKH came on the scene, I've been shading over to the supernatural along with authors like Clive Cussler, Lustbader, Steve Berry, and a few others broadening my reading horizons. Now comes an amalgam of detectives/mysteries in the supernatural realm from authors I've read and others worth pondering and boom! more stretching. As with any compilation such as this, there will be some stories you'll love, some likable, some go Whaa? Nevertheless, if you are a fan of either detectives or urban fantasy, this book would be worthwhile to gain another point of view of the writing spectrum available. As Len of DWTS would say, "Well done."

Supernatural fiction takes some skill to write well, it has a tendency to come across as fake as well as fiction. This collection of stories does not suffer that problem, they are mostly well written and cover the gamut from a little bit of supernatural to full myth. There is something for everyone and authors to look out for. Recommended!

Anthologies brought out by Prime Books have two features which place them rather firmly in the “love it or hate it” category. These features are: (a) None of the stories therein are new or fresh, and all had been published in other anthologies before being compiled into the particular collection in question, (b) Being selected from amongst already existing sections, the probability of finding a dud in the collection goes down considerably. The collection under review is a classic example. Apart from an informative & frank “Introduction” from Paula Guran, the anthology has the following works: -1. “The Key” by Ilsa J. Bick: Very dark. Very Good.2. “The Nightside, Needless to Say” by Simon R. Green: Hard-boiled & compact. Very Good.3. “The Adakian Eagle” by Bradley Denton: An old favourite. Very Good.4. “Love Hurts” by Jim Butcher: A classic from the Dresden Files. Stunning.5. “The Case of Death and Honey” by Neil Gaiman: Another old favourite. Brilliant.6. “Cryptic Coloration” by Elizabeth Bear: Overwritten. Less-than Average.7. “The Necromancer’s Apprentice” by Lillian Stewart Carl: Good.8. “The Case of the Stalking Shadow” by Joe. R. Lansdale: Superlative. I MUST find out more cases of Dana Roberts.9. “Hecate’s Golden Eye” by P.N. Elrod: Another adventure from the Vampire Files. Good.10. “Defining Shadows” by Carrie Vaughn: Promisingly dark stuff. Good.11. “Mortal Bait” by Richard Bowes: Total Crap.12. “Star of David” by Patricia Briggs: Another old favourite. Stunning.13. “Impostors” by Sarah Monette: Original. Very Good.14. “Deal Breaker” by Justin Gustainis: A compact and precise story. Very Good.15. “Swing Shift” by Dana Cameron: Not as good as the first Fangborn story that I had encountered elsewhere. But, Good.16. ‘The Beast of Glamis” by William Meikle: Not his best ‘Carnacki’ story. But, Good.17. “Signatures of the Dead” by Faith Hunter: Slightly overwritten. But, Good.18. “Like Part of the Family” by Jonathan Maberry: Awesome.19. “Fox Tails” by Richard Parks: Fresh concept, wry writing. Very Good.20. “Death by Dahlia” by Charlaine Harris: Not belonging to the class of several other stories in this collection. Just OK.21. “Sherlock Holmes and the Diving Bell” by Simon Clark: Breath-taking. Brilliant.22. “See Me” by Tanya Huff: Not much of a mystery. But, well-written and poignant.23. “The Maltese Unicorn” by Caitlin R. Kiernan: Trust one of the most powerful writers of our time to put s fresh spin on a classic from DH, and make it suitably weird & sad! Excellent.I really can’t recommend this anthology highly enough. GO, GET IT.

If you are familiar with the authors this book may be a bit more of the same. If you are not familiar with the authors it is a chance to find a new gem. Be warned often these short stories are following a character that has been developed and as a stand alone title it may be difficult to foloow.

I love Neil Gaiman's books so bought this because of him. There are some good short stories in here for sure which is one of my favourite ways to find new authors.

As usual in a collection of stories, some are good, some are moderate and some are odd to say the least. The known names, as one would expect, are good, but I have to say I had read at least one story in another anthology. Truth to tell I was a bit disappointed in the majority of the stories.