Family Matters: Murder New York Style

Family Matters: A Mystery Anthology (Murder New York Style)
New York Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime Edited by Anita Page Glenmere Press September 2014

Review by Cynthia Chow

This third anthology of the New York Tri-State Chapter of Sisters-in-crime contains a few established authors along with several up-and-coming authors, but all are at a superior level of writing from the best of the organization initially created to support female mystery writers. This is a collection that captures the spirit of New York and its many ethnicities, a dichotomy where many immigrants blend into American culture while others hold fast to their traditions. In a collection that highlights the darkest facets of family life, domestic abuse is exposed and wielded in all its forms; by spouses, siblings, offspring, and parents.

In Triss Stein's Eldercare, a young man feels sentenced to a life of slavery caring for his harridan mother, refusing to give up a chance to inherit the Brooklyn home he believes he deserves. His solution is to unorthodoxically put his extermination license to use in order free some beds in a nursing home, but his success will also mean his failure.

In Death Will Fire Your Therapist, Elizabeth Zelvin brings back her series ‘characters in the murder of an AA psychologist and explores a counselor’s Catch-22 duty to inform on a patient, breaking confidentiality and trust all in an effort to save lives.

In one of the most menacing and foreboding tales by Terrie Farley Moran, a family's car trip on Thanksgiving on the Throgs Neck Bridge is ticking time bomb, as they are trapped with the drunk and abusive father who is just looking for a chance to explode. The tone is lightened slightly as a geology professor who believes she was deceived into marrying for a green card plans to use airport security to enact her revenge in Lindsay A. Curcio’s We all Have Baggage.

Also on the lighter side, in Catherine Maiorish’s Murder Italian Style, Detective Chiara Corelli listens to the accusations of an Italian mother who believes her son was murdered by his nearly ninety year-old mother-in-law by poisoning him at their traditional Italian Sunday dinner. The irony

One of the more unique tales is Cynthia Benjamin’s Killing Short, where a Wall Street white collar criminal uses his wealth to buy himself a “bail sitter” who turns a multi-million dollar apartment into a lavish jail cell. He also buys a fall guy, but what he lethally discovers is that not everybody has a price.

One of the darkest tales closes out the anthology in editor Anita Page's Their Little Secret, as a daughter witnesses the disintegration of her parents’ marriage and tragically finds her greatest wish becoming her worst nightmare.

While so many anthologies contain stronger stories that compensate for the less compelling ones, here they all have their strengths and readers will find something appealing in each. Perhaps my greatest crime is in not listing all twenty of the very engaging, and skillfully written stories of this collection. The worst of crimes seem to be hidden in the most normal of homes, and whether dark or humorous these tales are as fascinating as they are entertaining.