Crime Factory: The First Shift

The 28 noirish tales in this anthology from writers both well-known (Dennis Tafoya, Ken Bruen, Adrian McKinty) and not amount to a mixed bag, with too few memorable entries. The most impressive selection, Dave White's chilling "Budget Cuts," centers on a threatening letter sent to middle school teachers as a prologue to violence. Dave Zeltserman comes in a close second with "The Mind Prison," which features a novel and Orwellian solution to the problem of overcrowding in American prisons that promises to produce inmates who are healthier on release. At the other end of the spectrum is Greg Bardsley's revolting "Microprimus Volatitus," in which a horny man must compete with an equally randy primate the size of a canary. Most of the other stories fall somewhere between these two extremes. (Sept.)