I have had OxCrimes, edited by Mark Ellingham and Peter Florence, for several years and previously had only read six stories from that anthology. This week I read two more stories and both were very good.
First is "The Sin of Dreams" by Walter Mosley. This is a cross-genre story, a combination of science fiction and crime fiction, although heavier on the science fiction side. As the story begins, a hip hop promoter who runs a biological research company is trying to convince a very young expert in bio-storage technology, Carly Mathews, to join a company that plans to transfer one's memories along with the soul from one body to another. The intent is to provide a way to move the soul of a dying human to a new body. Carly doesn't believe that this is possible, but she is lured into the proposition because the work would be so challenging and she would gain from it whether it is successful or not. Mosley writes so well that I was pulled in from the beginning. It was a very interesting story with a weird ending.
This story was first published in OxCrimes in 2014, but was also published in the recent collection of Mosley's short stories, The Awkward Black Man, released in September 2020.
The second story I read was "Underneath the Mistletoe Last Night" by Mark Billingham. It featured his series character, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne, and it almost made me want to try that series. I read the story now because it is still close to the holidays. The ending was kind of obvious but I liked the story anyway. It is not your usual uplifting or festive Christmas tale.
All of the stories I have read in this anthology have been excellent. I am sure I will continue and read all the stories in the book (eventually).
