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nighthawk's review
3.0
Found this at the Court Street Community Bookstore. I bought this, a galley copy of Wendy Lesser's autobiography, and a 1982 issue of the Paris Review. There's a great story about a taken-for-granted, subtly gay housewife in here by Mabel Maney, who went on to write The Case of the No-Good Girlfriend, which inspired me to be lesbianier in my writing.
vasha's review
2.0
Is it unfair of me to think that this selection of the "best" is remarkably conservative, even stale? I know that Otto Penzler has been in the business for a very long time, which might explain his choices; but, by reputation, it's not what I'd have expected from Parker -- but it makes more sense when I find that Parker devoted his introduction to rehashing for the 400,000th time Chandler's essay on the American private eye. These crime stories (not mystery, for the most part -- very little uncertainty) contain social analyses, regional flavor, character studies, etc., but mostly in watered-down form. A few that stood out to my eyes: Elmore Leonard as snappy as ever, and Doug Allyn's moody "Blind Lemon". Monica Wood's "Unlawful Contact" is successfully startling, but could be even better. I'm not really grumbling; when I read "The Mark", I found myself enjoying it even though every sentence seemed familiar.
bvlawson's review
4.0
The history of the "best of" American mystery short story anthology probably dates back to 1931 and The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year, edited by Carolyn Wells, up through David C. Cooke's Best Detective Stories of the Year published from 1947 to 1959. More modern incarnations have been The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, from the editors of Mystery Scene Magazine, an annual publication since 1992; The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories edited by Ed Gorman, annual since 2000; and Otto Penzler's The Best American Mystery Stories series.
The first Penzler anthology was in 1997 when Houghton Mifflin wanted a mystery version of its already-established Best American Short Stories. They contacted Penzler, who said in the Foreword that "it was his responsibility to identify and read all the mystery stories published in the calendar year," a number which totaled 500 from mystery specialty magazines, small literary journals, popular consumer publications, and anthologies.
There has been remarkable growth in the volume of published mystery short stories in the past 15 years or so. When I did a quick calculation of the 2008 stories published in some 20 mystery anthologies, EQMM, AHMM, and online 'zines like Mysterical-E, Thrilling Detective, and Crimespree, I came up a total of double Penzler's 1997 number, around 1,000 stories -- and that number doesn't include all of the anthologies, or the small lit journals or popular consumer publications.
The editor for the freshman effort in the Penzler series, Robert B. Parker, first reflects on the Hammett-Chandler origins of the American crime story. Then he introduces the collection with the words "As you will see in this collection, the stories remain the story of the hero's adventure in search of a hidden truth.' They are stories about a hero 'fit for adventure' in a time when stories of far bluer blood are still stuck in their bleak corner of the wasteland where Spade took Hammett. This is no small thing." The 20 stories included cover a wide range of thematic material in a variety of authorial styles: from the high society setting of Elizabeth George to the psychological suspense-with-a-twist by Jeffery Deaver, and from Melodye Johnson Howe's Hollywood banality to the humor-noir of Elmore Leonard.
The collection starts off nicely with "Blind Lemon" by Doug Allyn, draped against a backdrop of the blues and music of real-life musician Blind Lemon Jefferson, in which private eye R.B. "Ax" Axton painfully relives a fateful day a decade earlier when he and a female singer inadvertently caused the murder of a mutual friend. Other standouts include "A Death on the Ho Chi Minh Trail," by David K. Harford', where an M.P. tries to solve the puzzle of why an American soldier supposedly killed in a firefight with the Viet Cong didn't have bullet holes in his shirt, and "When You're Hungry" by George Pelecanos, a tale of double-crossing and betrayal in the steamy and lawless streets of Brazil.
Ask any author and most will tell you short stories can be harder to write than novels, but when you come across little gems like these, you almost wish the authors would drop the novels and dedicate themselves to the shorter form. The reader benefits, too, from such an anthology, being able to experience one actualized world after another -- the literary equivalent of visiting an amusement park, finding some rides more to your liking than others, but having all of them leave you just a little bit breathless.
The first Penzler anthology was in 1997 when Houghton Mifflin wanted a mystery version of its already-established Best American Short Stories. They contacted Penzler, who said in the Foreword that "it was his responsibility to identify and read all the mystery stories published in the calendar year," a number which totaled 500 from mystery specialty magazines, small literary journals, popular consumer publications, and anthologies.
There has been remarkable growth in the volume of published mystery short stories in the past 15 years or so. When I did a quick calculation of the 2008 stories published in some 20 mystery anthologies, EQMM, AHMM, and online 'zines like Mysterical-E, Thrilling Detective, and Crimespree, I came up a total of double Penzler's 1997 number, around 1,000 stories -- and that number doesn't include all of the anthologies, or the small lit journals or popular consumer publications.
The editor for the freshman effort in the Penzler series, Robert B. Parker, first reflects on the Hammett-Chandler origins of the American crime story. Then he introduces the collection with the words "As you will see in this collection, the stories remain the story of the hero's adventure in search of a hidden truth.' They are stories about a hero 'fit for adventure' in a time when stories of far bluer blood are still stuck in their bleak corner of the wasteland where Spade took Hammett. This is no small thing." The 20 stories included cover a wide range of thematic material in a variety of authorial styles: from the high society setting of Elizabeth George to the psychological suspense-with-a-twist by Jeffery Deaver, and from Melodye Johnson Howe's Hollywood banality to the humor-noir of Elmore Leonard.
The collection starts off nicely with "Blind Lemon" by Doug Allyn, draped against a backdrop of the blues and music of real-life musician Blind Lemon Jefferson, in which private eye R.B. "Ax" Axton painfully relives a fateful day a decade earlier when he and a female singer inadvertently caused the murder of a mutual friend. Other standouts include "A Death on the Ho Chi Minh Trail," by David K. Harford', where an M.P. tries to solve the puzzle of why an American soldier supposedly killed in a firefight with the Viet Cong didn't have bullet holes in his shirt, and "When You're Hungry" by George Pelecanos, a tale of double-crossing and betrayal in the steamy and lawless streets of Brazil.
Ask any author and most will tell you short stories can be harder to write than novels, but when you come across little gems like these, you almost wish the authors would drop the novels and dedicate themselves to the shorter form. The reader benefits, too, from such an anthology, being able to experience one actualized world after another -- the literary equivalent of visiting an amusement park, finding some rides more to your liking than others, but having all of them leave you just a little bit breathless.
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