Best American mystery stories

The Best American Series® First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected...

"With so many great authors contributing to this fiction collection . . . it doesn't take detecting skills to discover the gem. And every story dazzles . . . These stories, in prose both elegant and compelling, get to the heart of why people do what they do." — USA Today

The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 will be selected by "writing powerhouse" (USA Today) Laura Lippman. With her popular Tess Monaghan series and

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In his introduction, guest editor James Patterson observes, "I often hear people lamenting the state of Hollywood ... If that's the case, I've got one thing to say: read these short stories. You can thank me later." Patterson has collected a batch of stories that have the sharp tension, drama, and visceral emotion of an Oscar-worthy Hollywood production. Spanning the extremes of human behavior, The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 features characters...

The New York Times-bestselling author presents a thrilling anthology of devious crimes with stories by C. J. Box, Peter Straub, Joyce Carol Oates and more. From an isolated Wyoming ranch to the Detroit boxing underworld, and from kidnapping and adultery in the Hollywood Hills to a serial killer loose in a nursing home, The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 hosts an entertaining abundance of crime, psychological suspense, and bad intentions. The...

New York Times best-selling author of ten genre-bending novels Jonathan Lethem helms this collection of the year's best mystery short fiction. For Jonathan Lethem, "crime stories are deep species gossip." He writes in his introduction that "they're fundamentally stories of power, of its exercise, both spontaneous and conspiratorial, stories of impulse and desire, and of the turning of tables." The Best American Mystery Stories 2019 has its full share...

Steph Cha, a rising star who brings a fresh perspective as series editor, takes the helm of the new The Best American Mystery and Suspense, with best-selling crime novelist Alafair Burke joining her as the first guest editor. "Crime writers, forgive the pun, are killing it right now creatively," writes guest editor Alafair Burke in her introduction. "It was difficult-painful even-to narrow this year's Best American Mystery and Suspense to only...