The 22 stories in Berry’s politically charged second Low Down Dirty Vote crime fiction anthology all revolve around the premise that “every stolen vote is a crime.” The anthology opens with Faye Snowden’s “One Bullet. One Vote,” which sets the tone as 85-year-old Willie Mae Brown becomes the first black person in her small town to vote despite threats to the safety of her family. The stories that follow highlight similar issues, including the voting rights of convicted felons (in Tim O’Mara’s “Voting Block” and S.B. White’s “The Sentencing Conundrum), the Equal Rights Amendment (in David Hagerty’s “An ERA of Inequality”), and the purging of voter registration lists (Ann Parker’s “Purged”).

The potentially depressing effect of such stories is buoyed by an array of vivid and dynamic characters, such as the cantankerous septuagenarian in Sarah M. Chen’s “Unit 805” who blackmails the board members of his retirement home; the stubborn, old-fashioned grandfather in Camille Minichino’s “Three Funny Things Happened on the Way to Vote” and the granddaughter who cares for him; and two assassins (one each from Frank Rankin’s “A Moral Assassin” and Terry Sanville’s “Pro Bono”) who try to do the right thing.

The depictions of election-rigging occur across time periods both historic (a 1910 sheriff’s election in Jackie Ross Flaum’s “Two Dead, Two Wounded”) and modern (a congressman’s campaign jeopardized by Photoshop and Facebook in Bev Vincent’s “Kane and the Candidate”), in communities both small (a nonprofit theatre organization in Robert Lopresti’s “Shanks Gets Out the Vote”) and large (a state governor’s race in James McCrone’s “Numbers Don’t Lie”). Neither side of the political divide is immune: Madeline McEwen’s “Benevolent Dictatorship” features a proud Democrat who forges the signatures on her family’s ballots, while Travis Richardson’s “The Cost of Ethics” sees a GOP volunteer lament that he’d “love to have an ethical Republican Party.” Regardless of affiliation, readers will find these stories give color and life to a relevant and often controversial issue.

Takeaway: Social studies teachers, history buffs, and anyone curious about politics will appreciate this anthology of crime stories about fighting, scheming, and taking action for the right to vote.

Great for fans of Michael Dobbs’s House of Cards, Tom Clancy.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: B+
Illustrations: -
Editing: B-
Marketing copy: B-