Delta Blues

Showing 1-3 of the 3 most recent reviews

• 1.Review from

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  Posted February 21, 2011 by Mindy, Boulder, CO

  I enjoyed these stories but like most short stories - I wanted them to go on!

• 2.Review from

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  Posted August 06, 2010 by Jan, The United States

  I loved this book. My son was a teacher for TFA in the Delta and lived in Clarksdale for a couple of years. He is now a Vice-Principal in Marks; so we have spent some time in the Delta visiting him. It is truly a unique culture and the blues music is awesome. The more we visit, the more I appreciate the people, their struggles and their history. These short story totally capture the flavor of the area and the authors are all very gifted. I wanted the book to continue on and on.

• 3.Review from

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  Posted June 08, 2010 by Steve, Newington, CT

  Inspired by the blues (well, DUH!), this collection stretches from comic to nightmarishly dark and most of the stops in between with very few weak spots. Most of them deal with crime in one way or another, and a few give established writers a chance to experiment, usually with satisfying results.
  
  There are nineteen stories in the collection, so let me simply say that many of the stories work well, starting with what looks like familiar ground and making a sudden turn that brought me along with the characters. David Sheffield's "Love In Vain" was such a story. So are Lynne Barrett's "Blues for Veneece" and "The Sugar Cure" by Carolyn Haines, who also edited this collection with a sure hand and surer eye.
  
  Toni L. P. Kelner's first PI story works well, with nice touches of irony, and John Grisham's "Fetching Raymond" uses understated irony and grim humor far better than I expected from reading some of his early novels.
  
  Only one story failed for me, and maybe that's just me. Daniel Martine, who usually writes screenplays, seemed to be trying too hard and came up with a tale that felt too self-conscious and took much too long to accomplish the little that I saw coming before it got there.
  
  While I've read work by roughly half the writers in this collection before, I appreciated the solid biographical notes on each author at the end of the book, with what seem to be fairly complete bibliographies. Great.
  
  I'm definitely going to look for books by some of the authors I've just met for the first time. Thank you to the publisher and to Carolyn Haines for introducing me.