- The contributors to MURDER BY MAGIC include well-known writers with strong fan followings. Laura Resnick won the John W. Campbell Award as Best New Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer; Carole Nelson Douglas, the author of over 40 novels, won an American Mystery Award; and Susan Krinard's debut, "Prince of Wolves (Bantam, 1993), was a bestseller.- Aspect has had several successful themed anthologies: the Knights Templar anthologies have nearly 74,000 combined copies in print, the African American anthology "Dark Matter (2000) won the prestigious World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, and Brian M. Thomsen's "A Yuletide Universe was published in 11/03 and shipped 15,000 copies.- Rosemary Edghill is the author of the Bast mysteries (Forge Books), which include "Speak Daggers to Her (1994), "Book of Moons (1996), and "The Bowl of Night (1996). She also writes fantasy and science fiction, including the Twelve Treasures series, as well as romances such as "Met By Moonlight (Kensington, 1998) and "Fleeting Fancy (St. Martin's, 1992). She has collaborated on bestselling novels with Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey, and Andre Norton.

"Although authors such as Randall Garrett in his acclaimed Lord Darcy series successfully melded whodunit plots with alternate universes where magic is real, few of the 20 supernatural mystery short stories in Edghill's all-original anthology rise above the mundane. Inspired contributions include Teresa Edgerton's 'Captured in Silver,' a nice ghostly locked-room murder tale, and Lillian Stewart Carl's 'The Necromancer's Apprentice,' which presents an interesting solution to the actual mystery surrounding the death of Amy Robsart, wife of Elizabeth I's favorite lord, balancing wizardry with astute deductions about the political motives of those who stood to benefit. The standout, James D. Macdonald's 'A Tremble in the Air,' introduces a psychic detective, Orville Nesbit, who's clearly heir to the tradition of such sleuths as Algernon Blackwood's John Silence and who deserves to live on in further tales. Unfortunately, most of the other stories rely on catchy gimmicks (e.g., a husband-and-wife sorcerer team based on Nick and Nora Charles in Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's 'A Night at the Opera') rather than well-crafted puzzles. The jacket art — showing a white-bearded wizard gazing at a body outline on the flagstones of a foggy, gas-lit street — amusingly evokes the fantasy-crime blend." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

This anthology features 20 original stories of murder by acclaimed and award-winning science fiction and fantasy writers.