Flesh & Blood: Guilty as Sin: Erotic Tales of Crime and Passion

A 300-pound sex goddess tricks her lover into committing murder for her. A porn king longs to make a respectable movie, but things go horribly wrong. An elderly man finds the best lover he ever had, but she exacts a terrible price.All of the stories in Flesh and Blood involve people who are truly guilty as sin. The most shocking story involves a serial murderer who favors a particular part of the body when he shoots his victims. None of the stories in this collection hesitate to take a careful look at the dark side of human nature. Whether describing a woman hiding under a bed while her lover seduces another woman or a couple who have become bored with their regular life and want to seek out more daring sexual adventures, the authors do not flinch from describing human nature at its most graphic. Many of the best stories are set in the past, during that period of the 1940s when "noire" ruled and, in fact, the editors of this collection say they were influenced by James Cain and Raymond Chandler. The editors explain that they set out to "shock, titillate and thrill." If you have romantic ideas about love, this is not the book for you. The characters in this book say "I love you," right before they plunge in the knife or pull on the trigger. Some of the stories are shocking and some are scary, but all of the seventeen stories in this collection are very well-written.

The pairing is so obvious that it's remarkable someone hadn't thought to create a compilation of stories combining graphic sex with noir detective settings long ago. Isn't that what detective fiction is ultimately all about, anyway? Detective stories all seem to involve the seven deadly sins sooner or later. There's greed, envy, lust, lust, lust, lust and lust. I think I covered 'em all. However, not much else remains covered in FLESH & BLOOD: GUILTY AS SIN, the latest in the FLESH & BLOOD anthologies of original stories edited by Max Allan Collins and Jeff Gelb.Collins needs no introduction to readers of detective fiction or to anyone else, really, since his graphic novel, THE ROAD TO PERDITION, was adapted to film. And Gelb? Horror aficionados have prized his HOT BLOOD series, edited with writer and writing instructor extraordinaire Michael Garrett, for some time now. FLESH & BLOOD is a logical outgrowth of the HOT BLOOD series and succeeds as thoroughly. The reasons for the success of both series are the uncanny ability of the editors to mix each anthology with well-known writers and those who are soon to be well known and to get their best out of all of them.This is far more than a collection of "dirty stories." The sexual content is graphic but always fits appropriately within the context of the tale. Collins's own "Lie Beside Me," co-written with Matthew V. Clemens, is an excellent example of this. The story begins with John Sand, a retired secret agent who is finding that domestic bliss is boring. Mrs. Sand decides to re-awaken their marriage by reminding Sand of certain aspects of his exciting past, just as the past suddenly --- and dangerously --- threatens to intrude. This is the story that Ian Fleming, alas, never got to write.Then there is O'Neil De Noux's contribution, "The Iberville Mistress." De Noux is a frequent contributor to Gelb's anthologies. No one can write an erotic tale set in New Orleans, that most erotic of cities, like De Noux. This tale of a private eye who becomes an unwitting, though not necessarily unwilling, instrument of the termination of a marriage is worth the price of admission all by itself.Loren Estelman contributes a fine and humorous offering entitled "A Hatful of Ralph" about a department store detective who finds out more than he should about the extracurricular activities of a couple of coupling employees, while Gelb's "Perfection" is perhaps the ultimate cautionary tale about getting what you wish for. Garrett is represented as well in "Sex Crimes," which is the perfect title for a little band of thrill killers who, uh, really get into their work.There are a couple of surprises as well. Clemens and Gelb score a coup with "Walking to Paris," a story by the much missed and remembered Rex Miller, who comes out of an illness-imposed retirement to present this story about a stewardess with a penchant for the ultimate payback. And then there's "Bank Job" by Thomas Roche. I was heretofore unfamiliar wi