Review - OXCRIMES, Ian Rankin

OXCRIMES, from Profile books is a fundraising book of short crime stories with contributions from a strong group of authors - some of whom will be favourites, many of whom will be new to readers.

Said it before, will say it again, the best thing about short story collections is a chance to find "new to you" authors. In this collection the option of comparing them, up close, with more favourite writers is a bonus. Particularly as the list of contributors is so stellar, and the standard of the stories here really high.

For my money, I've had Stuart Neville on the "long list" for ages now, but have promoted him to "the ridiculously long List of Books that I have to read before I die", along with Anne Zouroudi. I've also bumped Mark Billingham, Denise Mina, Fred Vargas, Yrsa Sigurdardottir and John Harvey up on "the List" on the basis that I'm behind with their books. On the other hand, Adrian McKinty and Louise Welsh are on the top of "the List" as soon as there is a sniff of a new book (I've got a new one from McKinty here at the moment and I'm starting to develop a twitch whilst I do some "must be read" reading first). I'm also really pleased to see something from Stella Duffy - been a while.

But that's not to dismiss any of the other stories in OXCRIMES, and there's guaranteed to be something here for everyone. And it's for a good cause to boot.

With previous books ‘OxTravels’ and ‘OxTales’ having raised over a quarter of a million pounds since their 2009 publication, Oxfam are hoping ‘OxCrimes’ will raise even more, helping tackle poverty and suffering around the world. Visit Oxfam’s emergency Response pages to find out more about how you can help.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/features/oxcrimes(link is external)
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/donate