Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini (ed.): Detective Duos (1999) From the Publisher: Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini (ed.): Detective Duos. Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0195129105 (June, 1999), 444 p., £19.99 (?).
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Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini (ed.): Detective Duos (1997) From the Publisher: In this marvelous anthology, a real-life detective duo--married mystery novelists Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini--have brought together 25 of the best paired puzzle-solvers in short stories of remarkable range and scope. Here are traditional tandems: Sherlock and his admiring Watson, in a devilish puzzler "The Adventure of the Empty House," alongside Nero Wolfe and his (less fawning) employee, Archie Goodwin, in "Fourth of July Picnic." Husband and wife teams are well represented by Frances and Richard Lockridge's Mr. and Mrs. North, Kelley Roos's Jeff and Haila Troy, and Patrick Quentin's Peter and Iris Duluth. Amateurs work alongside professional crimesolvers in such stories as Julie Smith's never-before-published "The End of the Earth," featuring Skip Langdon and Steve Steinman, and the clue-seeking precursors to television's Quincy appear as partnered forensic pathologists Dr. Daniel Coffee and Dr. Motilal Mookerji in Lawrence G. Blochman's "The Phantom Cry-Baby." Sleuthing tandems come in different sexes, so we find Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone and Rae Kelleher alongside Fredric Brown's Ed and Am Hunter, as well as Bill Pronzini's Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon, where crime solving crosses barriers of both gender and time. And here too is a treasure chest of detective fiction styles: pure deduction, the impossible crime, the cozy, the dark comedy, espionage, the procedural, and more, in locales as varied as the crimes themselves, from England, to Antarctica, to fast-moving trains crossing America. Spanning more than a century of crime fiction, including both classic tales by the greats of mystery writing as well as gems from lesser-known writers, Detective Duos will captivate the sleuth in all of us. Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini (ed.): Detective Duos. The Best Adventures of Twenty-Five Crime-Solving Twosomes. Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0195102142 (November, 1997), 444 p., £12.99.
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