Crime: A Fiction River Anthology Special Edition-Edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Crime: A Fiction River Anthology Special Edition Edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch WMG (www.wmgpublishing.com), Mar 18 2014, $15.99 ISBN 9780615935164 This entertaining Fiction River Special Edition anthology contains sixteen new crime tales that mostly focus on felonious behavior rather than solving the case. In “Hitler’s Dogs” by Doug Allyn, Doc comes home from self-imposed exile to be a pallbearer at the funeral of his beloved gang boss mentor. Biddle and the young girl work a lottery scam that nets then $40 from a sucker only to lose that money and more to a hold-up, which means running the scheme again in Steve Hockensmith’s “Wheel of Fortune.” The cop tells the Fourth AKA Nico that he needs a lawyer as the gas accelerant that caused the fire points to him as is the arsonist; but the “Fol” (by Kristine Kathryn Rusch) is unconcerned as he has affluence to buy his way out of trouble though this time money turns out to be not enough. Deputy Sheriff Jill Jordan (see the police procedural A Death In Cumberland) patrols lonely Highway 50 in which drivers think they can get away with anything in “Jackrabbit DMZ by Annie Reed. With no clinkers, the fabulous collection runs the genre gamut and more as affirmed by Jan who, in a cozy told in Haiku, finds the corpse in which her ex is the obvious strangler, but she keeps sleuthing “Gas, Tan, Video” (by M. Elizabeth Castle). Harriet Klausner