I know what you’re doing here, so come on, oh come on, oh come on. There ain’t no motive for this crime; the dragon was a friend of mine. Let’s interrogate The Dragon Done It, edited by Eric Flint & Mike Resnick.
Synopsis:
Pity the poor private eye (or official investigator, for that matter), who has to solve a case which may involve death by black magic, evidence that may have been altered or planted by an itinerant sorcerer, and supernatural entities.
Source: Goodreads
SPOILERS BELOW
The latest anthology I’m looking at is a collection of detective stories set in fantasy world. It does have an introduction laying out its purpose (yay!) but does not include author introductions with the short stories (boo!). With that out of the way, let’s examine the stories.
“The Long and Short of It” by Mike Resnick has a private investigator hired by a pair of circus performers who’ve had a curse put on them. A pastiche of noir detective fiction, it leans very heavily on the humorous side, and succeeded at tickling my funny bone. The jokes came fast and furious, and there’s something about the specific narrative stylings of the hardboiled detective genre that really makes me enjoy parodies of it – noir detective bits were also my favorite part of the various Bulwer-Lytton Contest compilations. An excellent start to the collection.
“Dead Wolf in a Hat” by Graham Edwards is another humor-heavy noir parody, about a detective investigating a hat-wearing wolf who gets shot dead outside his office. It had a lot of interesting elements that interested me, and I could almost say it’s as good as the first story – but only almost. Unfortunately, comedy and dead dogs aren’t quite a perfect tonal match. You remember that episode of The Simpsons where the audience is informed that a puppy has been hit by a car right before Homer launches into his comedy routine? Yeah, the unnecessary violence against what turns out to be a perfectly innocent pooch caused this one to end on a sour note for me, so I can only call it average overall.
“This Town Ain’t Big Enough” by Tanya Huff is part of the Henry Fitzroy / Vicki Nelson series, and has Vicki discover that another vampire has been hunting on her turf. It’s a bit light on the investigation elements for a detective story, but I like the characters and it’s nice to see them in action again. A solid story.
“The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds” by Neil Gaiman is another noir parody, set in the land of nursery rhymes and featuring Jack Horner investigating the murder of Humpty Dumpty. Gaiman is in fine form, delivering witty humor interspersed with tons of nursery rhyme references – and I’m not exactly a scholar of the form, so who knows how many I missed. A definite winner.
“The Whistling Room” by William Hope Hodgson is the oldest story in this collection, being a tale of the proto-Lovecraftian supernatural investigator Carnacki the Ghost-Finder. The language is a bit antiquated, and seems to involve a fair bit of strange magi-babble and references to Carnackian mythology that I’m unfamiliar with – just what is an Aeiirii or a Saiitii, anyways? Still, one has to respect the classics, and overall it’s passable.
“Doppelgangster” by Laura Resnick has some wise guys getting knocked off by a supernatural assassin which takes on its victims’ appearances. Well, the mob ain’t gonna put up with that; and they might not know anything about magic, but they know a lot about whacking guys, so the battle of monster versus Muggles is on. This was excellent, a real entertaining read.
“Claus of Death” by Michael M. Jones is another noir parody, featuring Santa Claus as a hardboiled detective, and is the first one that doesn’t hit the mark for me. I know it was trying to go for humor by juxtaposing the traditional image of Santa against the tropes of hardboiled detective fiction, but the dissonance was just a little too much.
“McNamara’s Fish” by Ron Goulart has a detective hired by a husband and wife, each convinced that the other is cheating on them, with a troublesome magical fish at the center of the mess. A solid, decently amusing tale.
“Gunsel and Gretel” by Esther M. Friesner is the obligatory Maltese Falcon pastiche, this time featuring the witch from “Hansel and Gretel” getting caught up in the struggle for the infamous Black Bird. With an excellent sense of humor and one good twist after another, this was an extremely enjoyable story.
“Alimentary, My Dear Watson” by Lawrence Schimel is a Sherlock Holmes and Alice in Wonderland crossover. It is not good, as you might have guessed from the title being a bad pun. Next.
“Fox Tails” by Richard Parks gives its own unique twist on the hardboiled detective genre by transplanting it to historical Japan, with an investigator hired to track down a kitsune who is believed to have abducted a lord’s son. Of course, things turn out to be more complicated than they first appear. This one was decent.
“A Case of Identity” by Randall Garrett, set in an alternate history where Richard the Lionheart didn’t die and the British Empire never declined (and also magic exists), has protagonist Lord Darcy investigating the disappearance of a Marquis from within his own castle. With good worldbuilding and a well-plotted mystery, this a very good entry in the anthology.
“The Case of the Skinflint’s Specters” by Brian M. Thomsen has a detective taking on Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. It’s fairly predictable in terms of plot, but decently executed.
“The Black Bird” by David Barr Kirtley is another take on The Maltese Falcon, but far inferior to the earlier “Gunsel and Gretel”. In fact, it’s frankly incomprehensible. Nothing of value here.
“The Enchanted Bunny” by David Drake has its protagonist stumble into a fantasy world where he is mistaken for a great wizard and tasked with helping an enthusiastic but bumbling prince slay a dragon, with the prince’s evil elder brothers and the very real wizard serving them trying to undermine him at every step. In terms of theme, its connection with the rest of the collection is somewhat tenuous, as its protagonist is an unemployed writer rather than a detective and the plot is more a series of wacky shenanigans than a mystery investigation; but in terms of quality, it’s excellent. I definitely ended up enjoying it.
“The Adventure of the Pearly Gates” by Mike Resnick has the recently deceased Sherlock Holmes solving a mystery in Heaven. It’s a bit short and simple, but basically decent.
“The Seventh Chapter” by Harry Turtledove has a monk investigating a holy order which has apparently been flouting their vows. It turns out to be a misunderstanding based on an obvious semantic loophole – a cop-out of an ending which lacks any sense of payoff. The holier-than-thou main character didn’t exactly make for a likeable protagonist, either. A miss.
“The Detective of Dreams” by Gene Wolfe has a detective hired by H___, a Baron of K___, to investigate strange dreams being suffered by A___, R___, and V___, with a variety of other letters of the alphabet appearing in various supporting roles; and in case you can’t tell, I find this particular writing convention to be annoying as f___. And while the premise of a detective trying to determine the culprit behind a series of bad dreams had potential, the ending just left me rolling my eyes. Another miss.
Finally, “The Witch’s Murder” by Dave Freer and Eric Flint has an Italian monk investigating a closed-room murder which the townsfolk are blaming on a witch. The plot was so simple that I solved it as soon as Palinni and Mascoli inspected the crime scene, but it was decently written. Not a stand-out, but better at least than the two stories which preceded it.
So, tallying up the score, I count 6 good (“The Long and Short of It”, “The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds”, “Doppelgangster”, “Gunsel and Gretel”, “A Case of Identity”, “The Enchanted Bunny”), 8 average (“Dead Wolf in a Hat”, “This Town Ain’t Big Enough”, “The Whistling Room”, “McNamara’s Fish”, “Fox Tails”, “The Case of the Skinflint’s Specters”, “The Adventure of the Pearly Gates”, “The Witch’s Murder”), and 5 bad (“Claus of Death”, “Alimentary, My Dear Watson”, “The Black Bird”, “The Seventh Chapter”, “The Detective of Dreams”). A pretty standard bell-curve, slightly tilted towards the positive side; and given that the poor “Alimentary, My Dear Watson” and “The Black Bird” were both quite short while the outstanding “Gunsel and Gretel”, “A Case of Identity”, and “The Enchanted Bunny” all rank as among the longest of the collection, I am comfortable in saying that this book provided far more positive than negative experiences overall.
In short, this collection contained a good number of decently enjoyable stories as well as a few downright excellent ones, and I’m definitely happy to have read it.
Final Rating: 4/5
profmorbius 