Around the world in 22 murders…
MURDER
BLACKMAIL
REVENGE
From Lagos to Mexico City, Australia to the Caribbean, Toronto to Los Angeles, Darjeeling to rural New Zealand, London to New York – twenty-two bestselling crime writers from diverse cultures come together from across the world in a razor sharp and deliciously sinister collection of crime stories.

Absolutely brilliant set of shorts to read.
Thrilling plot and story lines that keep you gripped til the end.
Lots of guessing and well written.
Authors have done a fab job with these.
Recommend reading.

I was provided an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. This is my own hone\st voluntary review.

I love true crime and this was wonderfully written. Very informative and engaging. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Having 22 stories in one book means that most of these are rather short. Just as you get into the story most of them are just concluding.
However, the short format also means that there's a huge variety of writing styles, which was refreshing to read.
All the authors were new to me and it's a good book to read if you're on the look-out for a new favourite author as there's bound to be one (or more) with a style to match what you're looking for or like.
None of the stories, in hindsight, stand out from the others. Consistently good.
You've got stories written in stage prose, wives killing husbands, murders from the murderer's perspective etc etc. Something for everyone.

Glad I read it.

The Perfect Crime is a rare thing - an anthology that delivers a collection of pieces of uniformly high quality. Maxim Jakubowski and Vaseem Khan have brought together 22 enthralling crime-mystery-thriller short stories written by authors from diverse backgrounds, representing a variety of sub-genres, styles and settings from all around the world.

A brief prologue by each editor describes the history and importance of diverse representation in the popular crime-mystery-thriller genre. For too long, non-Caucasian writers were shunned by mainstream publishers, or expected to write only within the confines of their own ethnic or cultural group. Thankfully, there has been a change over recent years, with writers from diverse locations, cultures and ethnicities around the world enjoying considerable success in the competitive crime fiction market. As readers, our experience and enjoyment of high-quality crime fiction is all the greater for this trend.

The Perfect Crime contains works representing each continent and a wide variety of writing styles and approaches. All the authors whose work is represented are well-established writers who've enjoyed considerable critical and commercial success. While some stories resonated more for me personally than others, the uniformly high standard was evident throughout. The subject matter ranges from the darkest noir through traditional whodunnit to a humorous story about garden gnomes. My favourite stories were those by Vaseem Khan (contributor as well as editor), Sulari Gentill (a fellow Australian), Oyinkan Braithwaite and Ausma Zehanat Khan.

I'd wholeheartedly recommend The Perfect Crime as an engrossing and stimulating read to any reader interested in contemporary crime writing, particularly those who seek to introduce a more diverse flavour to their reading. As well as showcasing a few familiar favourite authors, The Perfect Crime has prompted me to add several full-length titles by authors I hadn't previously encountered to my TBR.

Thanks to the editors, Maxim Jakubowski and Vaseem Khan, all 22 contributing authors, publisher HarperCollins UK / HarperFiction and NetGalley UK for the opportunity to read and review this fabulous title.

Wow wow wow twenty-two bestselling crime writers from diverse cultures come together from across the world in a razor sharp and deliciously sinister collection of crime stories. Well recommend!

When you read " Edited by Vaseem Khan and Maxim Jakubowski" and the name of the authors featured in this book you know it will be an excellent anthology.
It is an excellent anthology, I was glad to read new to me stories by I authors I love and discovered others.
All the stories are excellent and I think that my less favorite was a 4*.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

From the very first story in this collection, The Mayor of Jukes City, the standard is set. This is a very good short story, but isn’t the best in this book (it’s good), as you can’t have the very best first, otherwise it would be downhill from there. This kick starts the standard which is maintained throughout, with expectations rising as you do come across your favourites, but, your picks may not be the next reader’s favourites and vice versa.
Almost all of the stories make it clear that their characters are from all over the world, as are the writers; the character’s names are not always plain John Smith or Jane Brown. This adds some colour (no pun intended) to the characters and the stories. This helps the reader to see, touch and feel the different crimes from around the world and how they are handled locally. This certainly adds to the intrigue, interest and wanting to know the outcomes.
The length of the stories vary, so you get a moving range of interest all the way through this book. There are some writers I will now look out for and hope to see their writing in a full novel. Personally, I like short stories from time to time as this varies the overall reading experience.
While I received a free copy of this book, my comments are the same as if I had paid full price. An interesting collection of different stories with my favourite being Sheena Kamal’s Sundown, and The Beautiful Game was great, probably because of my football addiction; I specifically like the way The Long Con was laid out, almost as an evidence file. I could go on, but that would take away your fun of reading these…

*** 4 stars***

This was a unique collection of crime stories from the different authors (many of whom I haven't heard of before but will certainly look into) which I believe was a great way to be introduced to soo many different names. It is fair to say maybe not all the stories will be to your liking (like for me) but that was just due to personal preference and how invested I was in the plot. It was overall very enjoyable read and I would recommend it to those who consider themselves a crime enthusiast!

Delicious…
Travel the world from the comfort of your armchair in this fabulous anthology comprising twenty two short stories of crime, suspense, murder and mayhem from top notch writing talent. Each tale distinct, each compelling and each enjoyable. A delicious collection to savour at your leisure.

22 tales and barely a dub one amongst them. I read them all and, OK, there was one I wasn't so keen on but the others... brilliant! I loved not knowing when or where the next story was going to be set... 1950s Darjeeling or 1980s NY hip hop scene to current day Toronto. I enjoyed DH Lawrence's cameo appearance in the story, 'A Murder of Brides'. I thought 'Either Way I Lose', a difficult but great read, and the sinister tale, 'The Beautiful Game', about a millionaire footballer. I loved the voice of the Scottish narrator in 'Paradise Lost', the poor woman framed in 'Jumping Ship'. So many great stories but my favourite was, without doubt, 'For Marg', set on a desolate farm in New Zealand, a wonderful story, with a fantastic sting in its tail.

A collection of short crimes stories some better than others. I found they were often too to get into them fully. I discovered some new authors to try.

A gem of a book - great to dip into when in need of a crime fix! I liked the stories being short as I think it's a real test of an author to create a world in a few pages, and I was introduced to some new writers of whom I hope to read more. It was also great and very refreshing to have so many diverse places and voices featured.
As with any anthology, some of these worked better for me than others, but overall thoroughly recommended.
Thank you to netgalley and Harper Collins for an advance copy of this book

A unique anthology of crime stories.
The stories are from around the world with some written by authors I have not read before , but look forward to reading more of in the future .
I enjoyed some of the tales more than others , which I often find in such a collection.
A diverse and enjoyable selection that has a bit of everything for the crime reading enthusiast.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this title. This is an anthology of 22 short stories by a selection of authors chosen for their sheer diversity. It takes you around the globe to Asia, America and Australia amongst other destinations. Amazon markets it as “around the world in 22 murders”, though this is not strictly accurate as not all stories involve death - not least the one involving the Queen and 278 garden gnomes. As usual with anthologies some stories hit the spot more than others, but the overall quality is excellent. Before this book I was only acquainted with three of the authors but will now keep an eye out for the others. Recommended for those who like to try something new.

This is a superb and unsettling collection of crime stories, edited by Maxim Jakubowski with Vaseem Khan, that takes the reader round the globe. In the introduction the editors point out what used to be a crime and mystery genre that was all white, but it is now becoming much more diverse, and to illustrate this, there are 22 stories from both established and up and coming writers that include Oyinkan Braithwaite, Abir Mukherjee, S.A. Cosby, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, J.P. Pomare, Sheena Kamal, Vaseem Khan, Sulari Gentill, Nelson George, Rachel Howzell Hall, John Vercher, Sanjida Kay, Amer Anwar, Henry Chang, Nadine Matheson, Mike Phillips, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Felicia Yap, Thomas King, Imran Mahmood, David Heska Wanbli Weiden and Walter Mosley. I have no doubt that many are crime writers already familiar to crime fiction aficionados.

In Darjeeling, a senior tutor from St Peter's School falls from Tiger Hill to his death, Persis and Archie investigate, a club bouncer comes by information that tells him who killed Desiree, and a farmer is worried by his disappearing sheep. Gus and Harriet, wedding photographers, take crime scene pictures where a woman is murdered, a man outlines 10 lessons to Neicy, a woman takes on an uncomfortable commission to photograph a baby and a man is planning a new life in America with new identities for him and his wife Brenda. Young Selene finds herself isolated in the sinister remote but exclusive home of Manchester United's most expensive striker, guarded by the Brothers Grimm, a man finds himself forced into a lose-lose situation when his secret is discovered, a man faces betrayal and learns the true fate of his brother, and was a local massage worker pushed off a building to her death?

I enjoyed almost all of the stories in this great crime anthology, and in what can so often be the case with short stories, I was introduced to some brilliant writers for the first time, such as Sheena Kamal and Nadine Matheson, whetting my appetite for their other published works. This is a wonderful selection of diverse crime stories, entertaining, engaging and occasionally darkly humorous, that I have no hesitation in recommending highly to readers of the genre. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

An excellent collection of short crime stories from around the world that I really enjoyed. Many authors I hadn’t heard of but will definitely look to read more from them.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

Around the world in 22 murders ...

A unique and compelling collection of short stories than span the globe - with world-class writers such as Oyinkan Braithwaite on the call sheet. Each distinctly unique voice brings a refreshing and sharp new tale of murder, betrayal and crime from a unique perspective and place in the world from London to Lagos.

Of course with any collection of short stories, it's impossible to say you'll definitely like them all but these have been curated wonderfully to complement each other enough while being very different and standing out on their own.

It wasn’t what I thought it would be, namely the length of each story, however if you’re looking for quite short crime stories, not detective stories but crime stories, you’ll love this

Thank you to the publishers and Net Galley for my free e-copy

This is a collection of 20 plus short crime stories from all around the world. The different countries and ethnicities included adds real depth to this collection.

I don't read a lot of short stories but I really enjoyed these and couldn't wait to start the next one to see where in the world I would be next.

My favourites were 'Clout Chaser' featuring a black serial killer and also 'Henry Cheng A- li-en' which focused on Chinese immigrants living in America and being forced into prostitution. A running theme I picked up in this story and others were how much corruption there is in policing.

'The Long Con; was another of my favourites, I found it the right length, captured my attention from the beginning and was a smart and witty page turner. 'Gnome Mans Land' was also a good addition as it was humorous and mixed it up a bit. A great read and funny.

I would love to read more collections like this and will be recommending

As is often the case with multiple author anthologies such as this, the quality of the selections in The Perfect Crime is variable, with a couple of standout pieces and a range of medium level work, but no real stinkers. It has also introduced me some authors whose work I was unfamiliar with (including that of the editor, Vaseem Khan) and who I intend to seek out more from, so in that way this collection has done its job admirably.