The Fourth Womansleuth Anthology: Contemporary Mystery Stories by Women

Zahava's fourth WomanSleuth anthology provides a series of offbeat if often unpolished yarns that use the familiar genre to shed light on the female psyche. The stories aren't necessarily about women private detectives as the title might imply; the investigative work in these tales involves civilian women solving crimes or simply finding answers to puzzling situations. The stories, at best, function as allegories of the politically correct woman finding her way through a maze of sexism. Linda Weiser Friedman's Chaya Dirotte, an Orthodox Jew, learns that her best friend Rina is being beaten by her husband, Lev, also an Orthodox Jew. Lev dies of eating pork stew, revealing himself as a religious hypocrite as well as an abuser of women. Other stories recount a woman uncovering an illegal toxic waste dumping ring and an outbreak of dogs refusing to give birth--a mystery unraveled by elderly superwoman Angela McBurney, alias Wondercrone. (Nov.)