Prize Stories 1994: The O. Henry Awards Book

Carolyn Hart, who edited Love and Death, describes the book as "a chilling exploration of love sought, love found, love lost." This is a generally quite good anthology.

My favorite story here is "Secrets," written by Hart herself. It is a sequel to another excellent story, "Spooked." Other stories I particularly like are "April in Paris" by Peter Robinson and "Till 3:45" by Margaret Maron.

The only story I don't like is "A Girl Like You" by the generally excellent author Ed Gorman.

And then we come to one more story, "Love at First Byte" by Kathy Hogan Trochek. This is a pretty good story with one big problem; it is extremely similar to a story by John D. MacDonald from 1949. MacDonald's story was originally published in the magazine Black Mask in March, 1949 under the title "Killing All Men!" It later appeared in a collection of MacDonald's stories, More Good Old Stuff, in 1984 as "Deadly Damsel." I don't think I am imagining how similar the two stories are but I couldn't find any reference to anyone else saying this.