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Title: Down These Wicked Streets by D.L. Browne & Kevin Burton Smith, D. L. Browne, Kevin Burton Smith ISBN: 1-58898-423-0 Publisher: GreatUnpublished.com Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $15.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Recommended for detective fiction buffs
Comment: Collaboratively edited by D. L. Browne and Kevin Burton Smith, Down These Wicked Streets: Seven Tales Of Original Detective Fiction is an compelling anthology of unique private-eye stories from seven undeniably talented writers of the "Wicked Company Writers Community". The stories range from a woman who unexpectedly inherits her uncle's detective agency, to Doug McCool, good guy aided by the power of an ancient text. An outstanding collection, recommended for detective fiction buffs, Down These Wicked Streets features hard-boiled action, subtle intrigue, conflict, sultry agendas and more.

Rating: 4
Summary: Private Eyes at Work
Comment: Down These Wicked Streets, edited by D. L. Browne and Kevin Burton Smith (Wicked Company, tradepaper, 253 pages).

D. L. Browne, an author of many pen names, is the founder of Wicked Company, a mystery community particularly active in the iUniverse world. Kevin Burton Smith is the editor and founder of The Thrilling Detective Website and a member of Wicked Company--when he isn't otherwise boosting the causes of noir--and, often, feminism--across the Internet. Here, the two rapscallions have put together an anthology of seven short mysteries featuring PIs.

The stories vary from fun to compelling, and none is dull. D. L. Browne's own "Just One of Those Things," is very Raymond Chandler stylish, with an added soupcon of D. L.'s truly incomparable wit. Her PI in skirts, Mary Kelly, a detective agency operative, can be caught on most days reading Black Mask magazine while slouching around at her desk. But when the story opens, Kelly's given the assignment of helping a wealthy client buy back some letters from his Chinese femme fatale lover. Kelly fairly swoons when she meets the man she's to help make the drop, but she manages to hold onto her mental clarity to the bitter--and, yes, of course it's bitter--end.

Sharon Potthoff 's Genevieve Lovisa owns her own agency--now--in "The Face of Iniquity." She has been left the business by her beloved uncle Mitch, who died recently of a heart attack. And because of his death, she is too depressed to take a new client, Mrs. Crestwell, who wants the goods on her philandering husband. When Mr. Crestwell turns up late and not particularly lamented... well, you see, Lovisa is forced by curiosity, and the sweet allure of money, to take the case. Potthoff handles the contemporary story satisfyingly with nice skill, dropping clues hither and yon to end up smashingly with a very tied-together conclusion.

Yes, the anthology also has stories by male noirish and hardboiled types, including a Doug McCool tale by Miles Archer--who previously wrote about Doug in a novel from Clocktower Books. In this one, "The Art of War," McCool takes on a mild meatpacker's appeal for help in keeping the mob from taking over his business. The great enjoyment for the reader is seeing how Doug can fix a totally impossible situation, which he handles with tons of machismo and a little bit of old-fashioned `it's who you know...' Tension abounds in this well-paced piece with a 70s flavor. Nice writing.

Barry Evetts' story features journalist Lucinda Leung who starred in Barry's The Panama Affair and who simply had to return to Venezuela in "El Fraudito Chinito." Leung is here at the invitation of Uncle Fang--not really her uncle--who was murdered the day before she arrives. Evetts has a lot of hooks in this and manages to heighten the suspense and the drama while depicting the culture of Caracas, which, as a long-time resident there, he knows better than well. Good story.

"Night Bird" by Katie de Koster introduces Frank Grant, a PI who comes across a bird-in-need on his surveillance of a drug-dealing bad guy. Here, we have a Wicked Company female writing as a male PI and she does so boldly, not hesitating at any turn of the sexual agenda. Her Frank Grant is as macho--and as clever in outfoxing both the police and the bad guys--as a guy's gotta be and the story is thoroughly action packed. A big twist early in the story takes the remainder in an unexpected direction.

In "Nothing to It," author Chris McKenzie settles on a pair of investigators, a male freelance researcher moonlighting as a delivery man and female intrepid private eye Sydney Blake. The two become, in not fast friends, at least interdependent, as they try to flee from murderous thugs. In this, gender politics play a role, with Sydney being the more aggressive and fearless of the pair. Action-adventure is the keyword for this story.

"Secret Smile" a tale of Toledo by Tribe, the lead-off for the book, is probably the most noir of the bunch. Also, an action-dominated piece, this one is written in the present tense and features characters so hardboiled that should they fall from a high place and crack, nothing soft or gushy would be revealed.

The book, on the whole, is a good addition to the mystery-short reader's library.

Rating: 4
Summary: DOWN THESE WICKES STREETS Is a Dark Chest of Wonders
Comment: The best story of the bunch is Browne's own "Just One of Those Things," which introduces detective Mary Kelly. "Just One of Those Things" has all the ambiance and adventure of a solid BLACK MASK pulp detective story, but it is primarily a sad parable about beautiful high society and movie people who refuse to own up to their responsibilities. People who end up paying the ultimate price when, instead, they attempt to bury their mistakes. Browne's style is polished and confident, she has a knack for intriguing phrases (two examples: "I felt the brush of his charm in my bones" and "I may not always land on my feet, but the good thing about landing on your knees is you're in a perfect position to beg"), and she rarely forgets to color descriptions with fragrances. D.L. Browne is a writer worth watching and reading.

Coming in a close second is "The Art of War" by Miles Archer. I was happy to see his 1970s detective, Doug McCool, the hero of TOO MANY SPIES SPOIL THE CASE, back in this new story. In "The Art of War," McCool is hired to dissuade an Ohio mob gang from muscling in on a Butchertown-or South San Francisco, as the local Chamber of Commerce prefers-family's waste disposal business. Using Sun Tzu's classic treatise "The Art of War" as his guidebook, McCool proceeds to do just that, turning the tables on the gangsters in a series of violent mêlées that kick off in South San Francisco and conclude on the mob's own doorstep in Cleveland.

Archer as hip to 1970s San Francisco as Dashiell Hammett was to the Bay City in the 1920s. I only wish "The Art of War" was longer so Archer could have had imbued it with a greater sense of peril for his protagonist. Like TOO MANY SPIES SPOIL THE CASE, McCool is battling a ruthless, insidious, and all-pervading enemy; unlike TMSSTC, however, McCool has the upper hand in this dicey situation from the get-go and never relinquishes it. (It seems the wisdom of Sun Tzu is timeless!) In spite of this criticism, if you like your detectives to be good joes at heart who will go the mat for the little guy, or are just a fan of solid writing, you must read Miles Archer's "The Art of War." And if you haven't read TOO MANY SPIES SPOIL THE CASE, get that, too.

For a bit of South American daring-do there is Barry Evetts' "El Fraudito Chinto" (The Little Chinese Fraudster). Evetts' Chinese-American journalist, Luicinda Leung, returns from THE PANAMA AFFAIR (iUniverse, 2000), this time teaming up with Evetts' newest character, Domingo Muratti, troubleshooter and fixer-of-problems for international corporations.

The titular character is one Michelangelo Fang, patriarch of a malicious brood of offspring in Caracas, Venezuela, where Fang operates an illegal immigration service. There is plenty of local color (Evetts lives in Venezuela), and Leung and Muratti make a pleasant professional couple (Muratti is married). With his exotic looks, taste for fine clothes, food, and wine, and a nifty Alfa Romero Giuletta in the garage, Muratti is an undeniably fun character, as is Leung, although I would have liked to see her acting more like a journalist and less like a target in this story.

Colorado native Chris McKenzie introduces freelance researcher Jamie Landon and private investigator Sydney Blake in "Nothing To It."

There is not much mystery here, if you discount trying to deduce who set up Landon to be mugged while he is delivering an antique vase to an antique warehouse for "a friend of a friend." The story begins with Landon escaping his muggers only to run into Blake, who is fleeing a gang of thugs masquerading as the warehouse's security guards. There are more escapes along the way, and enough fighting and witty patter to fill a decent Monogram serial chapter. Not much is revealed about Landon or Blake's background or personalities in this brisk adventure, but they are affable characters and this first story is a pleasant divergence.

Katie de Koster knows how to feed wild birds, as will you if you read "Night Bird." You might be tempted to give up on this story about halfway through because of the volume of information it contains about feeding wild birds, but if you do you will miss out on some fine fiction in the best pulp detective tradition. The kind where an innocent person dies as a consequence of a guilty associate's crime, and it is only through the thickheaded determination of a private eye that the innocent's name is cleared and the guilty made to pay for their sins.

If you like Quentin Tarantino and Vertigo Comics, you will like "Secret Smile," a post-modernist detective story by Tribe. Tribe can write and he is a good stylist, which is to his benefit since, in post-modernism, style equals substance. Post-modernism also produces introspective paragraphs like this:

"Are things still secret if you can find them with little or no effort? Or are secrets only things you never know?"

If that sounds heavy to you, then go for it. If "Murmur not at the ways of providence" sounds better, then "Secret Smile" probably isn't your bag, kid.

"The Face of Iniquity" is by S.P. Pottoff, the authoress of THE TWISTED TRIANGLE (iUniverse, 2000). This story introduces Genevieve Lovisa, a likable but insecure detective. I would like to see Lovisa in a future story, but her promising premiere mystery is marred by an over-dependence on coincidences and clues whose answers should be immediately obvious to Lovisa because they certainly are the reader. Pottoff likewise attempts to create suspense by teasing instead of revealing facts a few times too many. Still, her skill as a wordsmith is obvious.

DOWN THE WICKED STREETS is a darn good box of chocolates with overall solid stories that introduce a handful of worth-watching-for authors. Here is hoping this anthology from Wicked Company is only the first of many.