A collection of mystery short stories - some excellent and some not so much. Good vacation/beach book. ( )

This was one of the books in my first "mailbox books" shipment from the library, and the only dud.To be fair, I only read part of the first story, and quit. It seemed to be building up to something from the point-of-view of one of those women who cracks and kills all her children, and I just didn't want to go there. Ick. ( )

I listened to most of the selections but did not complete three of the short stories. One reader was particularly abrasive, loud and aggressive and it was not a style that was good for me. I couldn't really listen to the story as the voice was very off putting. There were about six really good stories out of 23 in the collection. I really enjoyed the story about Jack London and his death. It was a story that i had not heard and kept me fascinated. I was disappointed in Elizabeth George’s story because I usually find her a very good novelist.
The collection of new and experienced authors did not work for me. I would recommend The Copper Bracelet by Deaver if you want to listen to a collection of mystery writers. I give this a three stars ( )

A rather haphazard collection, despite its title, with some of the short stories very much better than others. Passes a rainy Sunday afternoon but not much more. ( )

Two of the Deadliest is an anthology of original short mystery stories edited by Elizabeth George, creator of the Inspector Lynley series. The conceit is that each story involves either greed or lust, two of the "7 deadly sins," or both. For reasons I don't quite understand, the stories are all by female authors specifically - it's not clear to me why it was restricted in such a way, as that seems an arbitrary rule for such an anthology. Stories by Nancy Pickard, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dana Stabenow, Carolyn Hart, Marcia Muller, Laura Lippman and George herself, are mixed in with some lesser-known authors; a nice touch is that the last five stories are by either first-time authors or people whose work has been published in small publications with small readerships, all of whom were George's students at one time or another. As with any such anthology, some stories work better than others, and there were a few where I didn't think the theme of greed or lust showed up at all, but that's okay. Generally a fun read, but hardly indispensable, so a mild recommendation from me. ( )