The Best American Mystery Stories 1997

by Robert B. Parker (Editor), Otto Penzler (Series Editor)

For many years, some of the most vital, creative, and exciting fiction published in America has been in the field of mystery, crime, and suspense. Now Robert B. Parker and Otto Penzler - both Edgar winners - have assembled the best that 1997 had to offer: twenty terrific, titillating tales from such masters of the genre as Elmore Leonard, Elizabeth George, James Crumley, Jonathan Kellerman, and Andrew Klavan, from newcomers like Brad Watson, and from well-known literary writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Malone.

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

Hardcover

First published November 1, 1997

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database named Robert B. Parker.
Robert Brown Parker was an American writer, primarily of fiction within the mystery/detective genre. His most famous works were the 40 novels written about the fictional private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the mid-1980s; a series of TV movies was also produced based on the character. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited as reviving and changing the detective genre by critics and bestselling authors including Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane.
Parker also wrote nine novels featuring the fictional character Jesse Stone, a Los Angeles police officer who moves to a small New England town; six novels with the fictional character Sunny Randall, a female private investigator; and four Westerns starring the duo Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. The first was Appaloosa, made into a film starring Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen.

Reviews

[B.V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Granted, mystery (or crime fiction, which would have been a more accurate designation for this collection) isn't my top genre, but I like it well enough to wish that the "best" ones gathered here were, well, a little bit better. Not that any of these stories were poorly written, but some felt unremarkable, and others weren't well-written enough to make their horrifying or depressing subject matter worth reading. However, there were definitely some great stories that bumped up my rating to a solid 3 stars:
"The Weekender" by Jeffery Deaver was excellent, psychological and manipulative in all the right ways.
"The Things We Do For Love" by Jonathan Kellerman was a good bit of clever fun.
"Lou Monahan, County Prosecutor" by Andrew Klavan really grew on me as it progressed to the perfect ending.
"Mrs. Feeley is Quite Mad" by Mabel Maney was delightfully strange.
"Unlawful Contact" by Monica Wood and "Hoops" by S.J. Rozan were depressing as anything but well executed.

[Jason Kinn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories in this book can be put in three categories: stories with trick endings, torture porn, and Joyce Carol Oates. It was a hard slog getting through the first two categories -- the stories are generally badly written by novelists who the editor recruited to write short stories. But the J.C. Oates story was good and has inspired me to pick up one of her novels in the future -- so reading this book wasn't a total loss.

[Darth Jader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a a couple of good mystery stories like: Blind Lemon, The Weekender, The Surprise of his Life, Eyes that never Meet, Red Clay, Mrs. Feely is Quite Mad, and Hoops. My biggest issue with this collection of short stories is that most of these stories (while being well written) wouldn't fall under my classification of Mystery stories. In my mind a mystery story is a story in which something isn't being fully revealed to the reader or a puzzle needs to be solved. In the editors mind, a mystery is any story in which a crime has occurred. This leads to some short stories in this collection telling the reader about the crime and how it happened or who committed it right away and focusing on characters born of that crime instead of how the crime was solved. I did like most of the stories included in this compilation, however I would not necessarily call it the best mystery stories by my definition.

[Lola · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable little collection of mysteries from yesteryear. Well, perhaps "noir fiction" is more appropriate. Not all are mysterious. But a good book companion for travel.

Interesting to read and note how times have changed in the quarter century since these were penned, and how they haven't as well. More than a few of the stories would probably not get published today because of outdated racial language--but I doubt that we are any less racist than we used to be, just a little more coded in our language. It's pre-cell phone, but even when technology changes, people don't. One story by Allan Steele does not belong; that one is science fiction with noir overtones and a very upsetting theme. I pretty much ignored that one. Several are set in the South and one in particular (Kindred Spirits) draws that cultural yarn-spinning tradition in an effective and disturbing way.

[Jennifer Gnerlich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up liking this book much more than I expected. The short stories work great with a busy work/life schedule. I found that the short stories were much better at developing the scene and characters in a concise manner rather than the typical novel. Some stories really stood out to me - “The Dark Snow,” The Weekender,” and others. Worth reading of you want short stories with a twist.

[Reynolds Darke · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are a few mystery stories here. Most are "Literary" stories that involve crime. This is not the same thing. I was disappointed.
The Mystery Story deserves much more respect than this.

[Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of these stories had me on the edge of my seat! They were long enough to get fully engaged but short enough to satisfy the part of me that felt like I had read a whole book. Highly recommended!

[Piper Friesen · Rating 1 out of 5]

to be fair this rating is only based on the first 5 stories because i didn’t finish it.

[Nancy Condon · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many great stories. Been awhile since I read short stories and thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

[Vasha7 · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Donna]

I thought that the early stories in this book were quite good, it's just that they didn't meet my definition of a mystery story. The series editor's (Otto Penzler) introduction indicates he has a very broad definition of "mystery." I didn't think there was much mysterious about any of these: creepy, yes; suspenseful, yes; puzzling, no. After finished 150 of 350 pages I decided that if I didn't like it, I didn't need to finish it. Finished.

[J.C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

about half the stories were good. about a quarter were really great. the other quarter remain unfinished cause they were just not up my ally.

I think the thing that really bothered me about this collection was that all the stories selected for this edition revolved around some form of celebrity. especially actors. there were far to many stories about actors who killed.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[SmarterLilac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun. There are a couple of pieces in here that yield real surprises--I especially liked Jonathan Kellerman's piece, 'The Things We Do For Love,' which could have been a contender for an O. Henry prize. My beloved Karen Sisco makes an appearance. And Joyce Carol Oates turns in another intriguing story.

It's nice that at least one installment of the Best American series is still good.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of stories about crime, and brutality, and suffering. If is not a collection of mystery stories. It was edited by Robert B. Parker, who ought to know a mystery story when he sees one, but his introduction to this collection raised doubts and the collection itself proves that his understanding of what constitutes a mystery is a lot different than mine.

[Mike Barnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe that with all of the mystery novels I've read that I've never read any short stories in the genre and never heard of this set of anthologies. Amazingly awesome! If you like mysteries, then you really should read this!

[Matthew Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of the best mystery short stories from 2006-2007 introduced me to some of my favorite crime/mystery authors, even to this day. I worry I may not have discovered Elmore Leonard and George Pelecanos until much later in my life if it was not for this collection.

[Dylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather weak start to this usually excellent series.