Cold Comforts: Tales of Murder, Mystery and Mayhem

You know, you think you know someone and then... kablooey! Something comes walking along, right up to you, and then punches you in the nose. It's like that with Peter Crowther.

After reading Peter's previous collection for Cemetery Dance, the poignantly dark The Longest Single Note back in 1999, you'd think you have his measure — after all, it echoes the nostalgia and gore served up in Escardy Gap, his epic collaboration with James Lovegrove. But then he sideswipes you with the science fictional tales of Songs of Leaving and you think, ah, okay... got him now (particularly as you've read the Forever Twilight novellas)! But then comes The Spaces Between The Lines, as bleak a gathering of horror yarns as you're ever likely to find (and if you don't believe us, read 'Bedfordshire')... which neatly ties into his take on witches, By Wizard Oak.

So, at that point, you're certain you have it. How could you not. It's easy, right? He's a soft-centered, spookmeister with an eye for wonder and the far reaches of space. Fine. But whooahhh hold on there! Along comes this baby... a bona fide set of crime and mystery stories, no less. And so, dear reader, it kind of looks like you know Jack.

Cats figure strongly in this book (though Peter Crowther has never owned one) and private eyes (well, one anyways)... and there are no mean streets in England, though one or two of them can get a little grumpy. Unnatural death also figures strongly here, though Peter hasn't killed anybody (not as far as we know). He hasn't smuggled drugs either (as in 'Boxing Day'), hasn't shot craps with dice that can foretell the future (the Runyonesque 'Tomorrow Eyes'), doesn't play trumpet (though, like Cal Williston in 'The Musician of Bremen, GA,' he does love the Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan version of 'Moonlight in Vermont'), hasn't tried to poison anyone ('The Allotment'), and as far as he knows Sherlock Holmes and the good Doctor Watson never did make it to the genteel Yorkshire town of Harrogate ('The Adventure of the Touch of God').

Eighteen stories from the fertile and frisky mind of one of England's most accomplished genre wordsmiths. And now we all know exactly what makes Peter tick. At least until next time.