Murder Among Friends

Murder Among Friends is a Lawrence Block-edited Mystery Writers of America original anthology, with the kind of careful curatorial frame Block's anthology work has always delivered. The volume is built around the theme of friendship as the engine of betrayal, and the contributors include working professionals across the form's major registers.

The Block contribution is one of the volume's strongest. The Donald Westlake piece is in his comic-crime mode. The Loren Estleman story is the kind of taut hard-boiled the form was producing well in the period. The lesser-known contributors include several whose names will reward investigation.

Four stars. Recommended to readers of contemporary American crime short fiction. The Block-edited MWA anthologies are one of the more reliable curatorial sequences in the form.