Deadly Housewives

Housewife is certainly not the first word that springs to mind when glancing at the stellar list of contributors to this wide-ranging all-original anthology. Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, Marcia Muller, Carole Nelson Douglas, Nancy Pickard, S.J. Rozan and eight other women authors cook up or clean up a host of household problems. Barbara Collins's "Trailer Trashed" takes reality TV to a delightful new low; Denise Mina proves as chillingly adept in "An Invisible Minus Sign" as she is in her novels; Suzanne Ledbetter's "How to Murder Your Mother-in-Law" makes a strong case for justifiable homicide; and Eileen Dreyer's "Vanquishing the Infidel" only loosely qualifies as a crime story, but is perhaps the most heroic of any. There are cheating, abusive and just plain bad husbands and some very clever ways of disposing of them. Editor Matthews provides an amusing introduction. (Apr.)