In this collection of 19 short stories, animal detectives of various species help colleagues of the animal or human sort solve mysteries and crimes. The Australian, American and Irish authors have created characters not just of the more common dog and cat varieties but also birds, rodents, foxes and supernatural creatures, including a shapeshifting wizard, a vampcat, a weredog and a gigantic spider called Hecate Who.

The commissioning editor, Lindy Cameron, is a founding member of Sisters in Crime Australia, an organisation whose motive is to share a collective passion for women’s crime writing.

Many of the authors in this collection are well known, including Kerry Greenwood and Meg Keneally, with others less so. One intriguing nom-de-plume is C J McGumbleberry. Their contributions range from standard crime-solving plots to fantasy and supernatural genres.

The only downside in this collection is the occasional typo or grammatical mistake. As in any anthology, some stories are better than others but all are entertaining. There are ghosts and animals who can talk, sometimes just to other animals but some can communicate with their humans. One of the interesting sections is the introduction where the editor outlines where her love of animal detectives began, including, Rin-Tin-Tin, Flipper and Skippy.

Reviewed by Lynne Babbage

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Lindy Cameron is an Australian writer of crime fiction and fact. Her first published novel was the archaeological adventure Golden Relic. Before being a paperback it was serialised a chapter a month, for 10 months, on the internet as a promotional lead-up to the prestigious International Council of Museums conference held in Melbourne in 1998.

Golden Relic was commissioned by the Museum of Victoria (Australia) for ICOM ’98; which means Lindy was probably the first writer to earn money from the then fledgling internet (she certainly beat Stephen King to the punch by a couple of years). Golden Relic has come full circle back to the internet and is now an eBook.

Her second novel, Blood Guilt, was published in 1999 with HarperCollins Australia. It and its two sequels Bleeding Hearts and Thicker Than Water – featuring Melbourne PI Kit O’Malley – now have a splendid new lease on life with her American publisher Bywater Books.

Lindy Cameron’s espionage adventure-thriller Redback, featuring the very cool Bryn Gideon and her team of retrieval agents, was first published by MIRA in 2008 and has been republished by Clan Destine Press.

Lindy long ago had the fantasy of growing up to be a famous scientist and still harbours a desire to be an astronaut, a warrior chick or an Apache Longbow helicopter pilot. These hint that she, perhaps, hasn’t grown up much at all.

Before plunging into the world of make-believe, Lindy worked as a journalist and a book editor. She also wrote some primary school history texts, and a card game book for kids.

She has been a National Co-Convenor of Sisters in Crime Australia and editor of the group’s magazine Stiletto for two decades.

Somehow, in the last little while, Lindy Cameron has also found herself writing and commissioning anthologies of true crime. She is therefore also the contributing editor of Meaner Than Fiction and Outside the Law 2 and editor of Outside the Law 3.

With her sister, Fin J. Ross, Lindy Cameron co-wrote Killer in the Family (not her own!) and Murder in the Family; and she is also co-author, with Ruth Wykes, of Women Who Kill (again, no one she knows!).

Lindy much prefers to make things up, however, and is currently working on the sequel to Redback; and a YA urban fantasy time-travelling adventure.