Sideways in Crime: A Lot of Fun to Be Had

Lory Hess, of Green Man Review, on Sideways In Crime:

"In general I was impressed by how well the authors represented in this anthology succeeded, each one quickly drawing me into his world with only a slight creaking of the scenery. ...there's a lot of fun to be had here. Some of the stories are unabashedly comic -- including one of my favorites, Kage Baker's 'Running the Snake,' set in the reign of a queen titled the Living Boudicca and concerning the adventures of a former druid named Will Shakspur. A few -- and these I admit I tended to skip through -- are on the gruesome side (John Meaney's "Via Vortex," for example, in which a form of teleportation has been developed with rather gory consequences). In between there's room for lots of variation; you'll find the answers to all sorts of questions, from what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa, to who really wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories."

Hess then complains that she had to read the book too fast, resulting in "a dizzy sensation of not remembering facts such as who is actually ruling North America now: the Aztecs? the French? the Spanish?"

Her advice? "Give some time between each dip into an alternate world to clear your brain, and enjoy the ride."