The Best American Mystery Stories 2013: A Curated Literary Collection of Crime Books, Mysteries, and Thrillers

by Lisa Scottoline

A best-selling novelist and Edgar Award winner, Lisa Scottoline brings her mastery of the thriller genre as well as her wit and heart to this collection of the must-reads in mysteries. 

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Thriller

450 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Lisa Scottoline is a #1 bestselling and Edgar award-winning author of 33 novels. Her books are book-club favorites, and Lisa and her daughter Francesca Serritella have hosted an annual Big Book Club Party for over a thousand readers at her Pennsylvania farm, for the past twelve years. Lisa has served as President of Mystery Writers of America, and her reviews of fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She also writes a weekly column with her daughter for the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled Chick Wit, a witty take on life from a woman’s perspective, which have been collected in a bestselling series of humorous memoirs. Lisa graduated magna cum laude in three years from the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.A. in English, and cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she taught Justice and Fiction. Lisa has over 30 million copies of her books in print and is published in over 35 countries. She lives in the Philadelphia area with an array of disobedient pets and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Reviews

[Mark Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Variety Pack!

“The Best American Mystery Stories” is your own personal sampler box. You can’t ask for much more stylistic range than these selections. Your mileage may vary, depending on flavor preferences. It’s hard for me to imagine that every reader will love every story here, but that’s a good thing, right? Consider these stories teasers—perhaps a way of finding a new author. For me, the name in this collection that jumped out was Patricia Smith, whose dark “When They Are Done With Us” stayed with me the longest. It’s edgy, dark and spooky. The hefty “Contributor’s Notes” informs me I’ve got some poetry ahead of me if I’m going to dive more into Smith’s works, but it was easy to see from the short story how much she believes in the power of words. Tom Barlow is another one, and the noir-tinged “Smothered and Covered,” sprung from a character spotted in a Waffle House, was excellent. Clear writing, simple story, tautly told. Sign me up. Everyone knows Michael Connelly and putting his name in the mix with “A Fine Mist of Blood” makes it easy to snag the book for this alone. Yes, it’s that good. A perfect little bit of clue-finding and brain power. He is The Bosch. For pure “mystery” by the classic definition, “A Fine Mist of Blood” might be the best entry here. We never get tired of Harry because Connelly dishes up juicy situations and packs a ton of story, and character, in 13 fast pages. Kevin Leahy’s “Remora, Il.” tells a story from the collective “we” point-of-view, which I makes for a refreshing style in the right hands and Leahy pulls it off. The suspense factor is low but the writing is solid; another example of clarity ruling the day. This one is about a farming community transformed by the arrival of a new prison facility. Change, shall we say, is hard. I run hot and cold on Joyce Carol Oates, but her short stories can be captivating and “So Near Anytime Always” is plenty gripping. She certainly knows how to put the reader inside the heads of her characters; she’s a master. Page-turners? A few. Good writing? Sure. Some are just “short stories,” whether they are “mystery” or not is another matter. Twelve bucks for 20 stories? A deal.

[Steven Levine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 2013 edition of The Best American Mystery Stories series. All mystery and crime stories published in the United States and Canada in print or online during the calendar year are eligible for inclusion. Each year, Otto Penzler, the series editor, chooses what he feels are the fifty best mystery stories of that year. These are then given to a "guest editor," an author renowned in the mystery field who further winnows them down to twenty stories that are included in the book. The other thirty stories that Penzler had chosen appear on a list at the back of the book, designated as "Other Distinguished Mystery Stories" of that year.

Penzler's definition of "mystery story" is very broad. He does not give his standards in this volume, but in other entries in this series he has stated that he includes not only traditional mystery stories but also any story "in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or plot."

This year the guest editor is Lisa Scottoline, whose novels include the Edgar Award- winning Final Appeal. Scottoline's "Introduction" concentrates largely on a discussion of two of the stories in this anthology, "The Indian" by Randall Silvis and "The Sailor in the Picture" by Eileen Dreyer. I agree with Scottoline's statement that "These stories could not be more different in almost every respect, except that they're both sensational stories..." They are.

As usual, the stories come from a wide variety of sources. This year there are five stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and one from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Two come from volumes of Akashic Books' "Noir" series. The other stories come from other periodicals and anthologies. (The "Other Distinguished Mystery Stories" list includes two more tales from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and five more from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.)

The "Contributors' Notes" in the back of the book are always fascinating. They include information about each author and comments by the authors about their stories. Some of the comments are quite brief, some longer. Clark Howard does not write about his story at all. (Nor could Maurine Dallas Watkins, long dead when her story was published.) Joyce Carol Oates, Randall Silvis, Patricia Smith, and Ben Stroud all comment at some length.

All of the books in Penzler's Best American Mystery Stories series tend to be dark in their overall tone and the 2013 entry certainly fits that description. There are violent deaths in almost every story here (although not all of them are murders). There are only two traditional mystery stories of private investigators, and I will begin with them. These also are both historical mysteries.

Bill Pronzini has a series about a detective team in San Francisco in the late 1800s. Some of these stories have been written together with author Marcia Muller but the one in this collection, "Gunpowder Alley," is by Pronzini alone. This takes a very traditional mystery trope, a man shot in a locked room, and comes up with a plausible solution. The detectives in this series are Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon. Carpenter is not much involved in this particular tale.

Ben Stroud's investigator in "The Don's Cinnamon" is Burke, "a free man of color who had left his home in the lower Brazos." Burke is a twenty-two year old from the United States who now is working in Havana. He is asked to locate a missing girl, a cinnamon-colored slave whose wealthy master wants her back. "It is hard," her owner says, "without my cinnamon here to comb my hair and soothe me." Burke is told that many slaves have recently vanished. Are all these disappearances related?

Of course, not all detection is done by private investigators. Three of these stories feature officers of the law. In "The Devil to Pay" by David Edgerley Gates, these officers are from a variety of services: Brooklyn police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents, a parole officer, Port Authority personnel, National Security Agency folks, and probably some others - and that's just the good guys. The criminals also have complicated connections. I think that this actually becomes somewhat too complicated.

Michael Connelly's story "A Fine Mist of Blood" features Connelly's series character Los Angeles police officers Harry Bosch and Jerry Edgar.
Bosch pursues a hunch that a woman who had some peripheral involvement in two seemingly unrelated murder cases might actually be more involved - might, in fact, be a suspect.

So far in my comments, there have been law enforcement personnel from the east coast and the west coast. The third such story is set in the South. In "Misprision of Felony" by O'Neil De Noux, New Orleans police officers are convinced that folks in the neighborhood know who murdered a store keeper there, but nobody will tell them about it. That refusal to help is at the heart of the story. In his notes at the back of this book, De Noux writes, "New Orleans has always been the hardest city in America to police. It's a city of great promise and great disappointment, where the good times roll and crime is always around the corner."

"Bound" by Maurine Dallas Watkins is a somewhat odd choice for this anthology. As I mentioned above, Watkins died in 1969, but this story was not published until 2012. A boy who has confessed to a murder talks about what lead him to it. He is a deaf orphan, taken into a hard-scrabble farm as a sort of servant. The four other people on the farm were the never-friendly woman who owns the farm, an older farmhand who is not much of a factor in the story, a kind young male teacher who marries the owner, and a young woman, another person without a family, who "[did] for [them] all." I read this, and, not knowing that it was an old story, I thought it seemed old-fashioned, not just in the details of their daily lives but in the attitude of the story. It is a good story, but not, in my opinion, one of the best mystery stories published that year.

Other stories also deal with children or adolescents. "Quarry" by Micah Nathan is another tale of folks living on a farm. Two young brothers, the older being fourteen, are alone on a farm while their father is away. They have two visitors, arriving separately and with different aims. This is a fine, surprising story.

I have so often written disparagingly about works by Joyce Carol Oates that it is genuinely a pleasure to get a chance to comment on one I like. "So Near Any Time Always" is narrated by a woman looking back to 1977 when she was sixteen and she met a boy. They first began to speak outside a library. She had never had a boyfriend - well, not exactly; she had never even been kissed - not exactly. And now this handsome, worldly boy who says he is from a wealthy family and says that he is nineteen, becomes close to her...and closer...and closer. But enough of the boy's behavior is odd to make the girl want to end the relationship. The boy does not agree. Oates is so good at writing about uneasy feelings. But will the suspicions be justified?

Another woman looks back on an earlier part of her life in "Light Bulb" by Nancy Pickard. An incident had taken place when she was eight years old, fifty-eight years earlier. She is presently at a bad time in her life; she just lost her job, has no husband or children, and now she has begun to think more about that long-ago incident, when she had fled from a man that she found threatening. But what, she wonders, did that man do to the children that didn't get away - and what can she do about it now?

Tom Barlow has a story, "Smothered and Covered," in which another young girl may be at risk. The narrator tells of being in a Waffle House restaurant at 3 A. M. when a twelve year old Black girl comes in, orders food, and then leaves with an older White man whom she had obviously arranged to meet there. The waitress, who is the narrator's ex-wife, wonders if they should call the police - but nobody in the restaurant does. There is not only more that happens, but things that happened in the past begin to resurface.

Only two of the stories in this anthology have an element of humor. Oddly, one of them, "Thy Shiny Car in the Night" by Nick Mamatas, first appeared in the anthology Long Island Noir. This is a jumble of things that relate to the area of Northport, Long Island: author Jack Kerouac, who lived in Northport for a while; Italian gangsters, who evidently are native to the area; a non-fictional high school murderer, Ricky Kasso. The narrator of the story is a poet, who was influenced by the work of Kerouac and who grew up in an Italian gangster family. This is the shortest story in the book but it contains a lot of plot, a lot of character, and a good-size helping of comedy.

The other story that is largely (but certainly not entirely) comic is "The Ring of Kerry" by Dennis McFadden, featuring McFadden's series character Lafferty, an Irishman whose concept of morality is somewhat askew. Lafferty has met a shy young woman who tells him a tale of a magnificent ring that was buried with her grandmother. Perhaps they could dig up the grave and get the ring. The young woman proves to be reminiscent of another literary character, Brigid O'Shaughnessy.

None of the remaining stories have much humor; in fact, they are all very dark. Kevin Leary's "Remora, IL" is perhaps the strangest of these. The narrator tells that the town in which he lived had suffered a huge loss: an automobile manufacturing plant, the town's major source of income, had closed. The people of the town became increasingly desperate and finally decided that letting a prison be constructed in their town might solve their problems. And it does - financially. The title of the story is never explicitly referred to in the story itself, but there is a brief mention of a nature documentary about fish which provides a sort of explanation.

Hannah Tinti's story "Bullet Number Two" would have been perfectly suited to have appeared in the old Black Mask pulp magazine. A man comes to town, considering taking part in a robbery. He checks into a motel. A woman with a baby knocks on his door, seeking help. Things do not go well. "Hawley knew he'd been right...and he wished he'd listened to his guts when he checked in and saw those freckles. He could have been miles away by now..."

"Crossing" by Andre Kocsis is basically an adventure tale. The narrator, a man in his mid-fifties, was formerly an American but moved to Canada thirty-seven years before, seeking to avoid the Vietnam-era draft. He lives in a remote part of a mountainous area in British Columbia, making a living as a guide. Once that meant taking people hunting and fishing; it has principally become helping people bring drugs from Canada into the United States. He is hired by six men to guide them across snow-covered mountains. They are a disparate group, some of whom have no experience in this sort of traveling. Perhaps they are bringing drugs; perhaps they have other plans.

There is a now-iconic photograph of a sailor enthusiastically kissing a woman on a street in New York City on VJ Day, the day that Japan surrendered in World War II and the war was over. The sailor then went on his way. But this story by Eileen Dreyer, even though it is titled "The Sailor in the Picture," is not about that sailor but about the woman he kissed and her brutal, jealous husband, returning from the war on that day.

Clark Howard was a very fine writer of short mystery fiction. A number of his stories involve prison life. One of those is "The Street Ends at the Cemetery," but the main characters are not prisoners, but a girlfriend of one of the convicts and a prison guard. That convict is believed to have hidden over a million dollars before he went to prison and now five different people are trying to get that money: the guard, the woman, the prisoner, a deputy warden, and an FBI agent. This is fast-moving and exciting.

The last three stories are all ebony-black tales of people at the ends of their tethers. Emily St. John Mandel describes her story "Drifter" as "one of the very darkest possibilities of travel, which is to say, traveling in an effort to erase yourself." The central character is a woman, an artist whose husband died when she was twenty-eight. Beyond bereft, she wanders through the world, arriving in Venice with almost no money. She meets a man who offers her a hundred euros for a small task, just delivering a package.

Patricia Smith's "When They Are Done with Us" is about another woman in despair. Jo lives in a poor neighborhood in Staten Island, has no hope, enjoys nothing, and lives in fear of her terrifying sixteen year old son. Jo writes poems; her son finds them and burns them. A family in her neighborhood is murdered, evidently by one member of that family, and thoughts of this obsess Jo. Jo's poetry is a big part of this story; I think that it is very good.

When Randall Silvis's story "The Indian" first appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, I voted for that as the best story published in that magazine in 2012. In an earlier commentary about that story, I wrote:

I think this is a terrific story, as authentically tragic as any short story I know. In another review of "The Indian," I wrote that this is "a remarkable story, in no way a mystery or detective story, but a deeply moving story of the escalation of a grievance into tragedy."

The Indian is a motorcycle. The owner died, having promised to leave the motorcycle to a man who had helped him work on it. However, there was nothing put in writing and the owner's son refuses to give it to the man to whom it was promised. The two men are brothers-in-law.

This is a story of tangled family relationships with festering feelings lurching out of control. It is wonderful.

I should add that it is violent and upsetting. And I still think it is a remarkable story.

One additional note about the mystery short fiction published in 2012: None of the stories in this book, none of the stories on the "Other Distinguished Mystery Stories" list in this book, and none of the ten stories chosen as the readers' favorites to have appeared in 2012 in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine were among the five stories nominated for an Edgar Award that year.

There are no stories in here that I think are less than good. I am not as fond of noir fiction as Penzler and his guest editors seem to be, so I might like some of these less than other readers would. My favorites, in no particular order, are "The Street Ends at the Cemetery" by Clark Howard, "The Ring of Kerry" by Dennis McFadden, and "The Indian" by Randall Silvis.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this is part of the book riot challenge 2022. Some excellent stories, and some not so excellent stories.

[Kayt O'Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I pick up a book titled The Best American Mystery Stories 2013, I expect some cotton-picking mysteries.

What I got instead were 2 definite mysteries (both historical detective bits), a handful of sort-of mystery-adjacent things (police procedural; witness/criminal statement and backstory; amateur sleuthing to look up the man who molested her as a child), and the bulk of the collection is just...crime stories. Someone does something bad. People cope badly with trauma. People kill others.

Some of these stories are good, many are depressing and unsatisfactory and did I mention they're not bleeding mysteries??? Like HOLY CRAP anthologies are always a mixed bag, but for the bulk of a collection to be not the thing the collection is supposedly about is ridiculous.

I don't care about the mental gymnastics that must've been required to rationalize including most of these stories under the heading of "mystery." Perhaps it was simply being originally published in journals or magazines that have a broader definition of mystery. There were several stories originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, including one definite mystery; many other stories were originally published in various magazines that include the word "Noir" in their title, which seemed accurate.

I'm not disputing that these are well-written stories, and likely would be considered good if you're the type of person who wants to read about depressed alcoholics with bad interpersonal skills coping badly with life, but again I emphasize: a book titled "Best Mystery Stories" should make an effort to have actual mysteries. There are 20--TWENTY--stories in this book. Even going off a very charitable interpretation of "mystery," less than half are in the neighborhood.

Ugh.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of stories. My favorite one is When They Are Done With Us by Patricia Smith which seemed more like a horror story than mystery. If you are in a mood to read short stories this is the book to pick up.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology with zero duds. Every story was... I can't say enjoyable, because that would make me sound kinda antisocial, given how dark many of them were. All were gripping, well-written, and employed consistently excellent world-building.

[Myrna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this book 3 stars because there were a couple of outstanding stories that actually were mysteries. The rest were more like soap operas then mysteries. Had to struggle to get through it all.

[Christopher Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My gift to myself every December. A great series of exceptional mysteries. Otto Penzler rules.

[Timothy Parfitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remora, IL is an unforgettable story.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories is a change in pace for me. In the foreword, there was a comment about how difficult it was to write a short story - every word has significant meaning and needed to be chosen so carefully. I enjoyed how much these stories told such rich stories with such limited pages. I enjoyed how these stories made me think.

I can't think of a favourite - I read them much too far apart.

Some stories that stuck with me though are:
1. the first story. So many twists and turns. It begins in the perspective of a diner-goer who was married to the waitress. They had lost a child. They observe a young pre-teen in the diner at 3am, she gets into a car. They later see on the news that she had escaped out of a moving vehicle to get away from a pedophile who had posed as an online friend to lure her. The waitress and the diner-goer pulls out a gun and decides to get revenge.
I still get chills thinking about the twists and turns of this story. It really does set the tone for the book - that unsettling feeling of mystery/thriller that nothing in the world is alright or set in stone.
2. The story about the dead guy. A good ole' whodunnit is always a crowd pleaser.
3. The slaver story that ended up being about cannibalism - wow. I will never again look at red sausages quite the same way.
4. The gangster, the lover, and the prison guard. A love triangle tragedy worthy of prime time tv - or at least a movie.

Would I read this again? Probably not. But that is because in the current uncertain time and in my line of work, I have no mental and spiritual capacity for more mystery and thriller. I have realised that the content I devour shapes how I see the world and right now, I need some more light and fluffy stuff. Great stories - just not right before bedtime.

[Charissa Wilkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overview: 2013 had quite a few mysteries printed. Twenty of them have made their home in this collection.

Dislikes: I'm not really a fan of noir fiction. There are quite a few of these stories in here. And The Indian was just gross.

Likes: A Fine Mist of Blood, The Sailor in the Picture, and Gunpowder Alley were the best stories in my opinion.

Conclusion: This is a good collection. It's the noir fiction, precisely the fact that there were so many of the sub genre in the collection, that brought the rating down.

[Mikey · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were 20 stories, and only 2 of them fit my understanding of a Mystery story (i.e., a baffling crime has been committed, let's figure out who did it). Most of the stories instead take you through the mind of somebody thinking about doing a crime or somebody who is going to experience a crime, and the mystery/crime happens at the end, if it happens at all. Most of the stories are well written and most are thought-provoking, but not really mysteries.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like many other readers have mentioned, most of the stories in this collection are not what you would normally think of as Mystery stories. It's a bit disappointing, and more disappointment comes with the stories themselves. None were amazing, few were pretty good, most were mediocre, and the rest weren't good enough to finish (or, occasionally, even to start). Strangely enough, one of the better stories was by an author whose book I hated.

I won't review this collection story by story. I will recommend that you feel free to skip whatever stories you want (if any).

Overall rating: 2.5, rounded up to 3 because I'm nice.
Edit: Down to 2 stars. I'm so annoyed by this book that it's wasting too much of my time.

[Mary Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading these outstanding short stories and enjoyed the convenience of reading a complete story in one sitting, then coming back for another at a later time. The compelling writers in this anthology pulled me right into the characters, plot and location. This was the first time I've read a book in "The Best American Mystery Stories" series, but it won't be the last.

[Anna Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A diverse selection of stories, should be something for everyone that like mysteries. These are short stories so most of the endings are abrupt. All of interesting but not all the characters are likeable.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF 54%

I enjoy mysteries, but these short ones tend to be abrupt, and very grim. People die, and that's the end. Good people, bad people, either way, there's a lot of death and suffering and lies, not so much the puzzles I enjoy.

[Kelly]

Finally finished! I have been reading this off and on all year. I can't really give this a rating because of all of the different stories. Some were great, some not so much. It was well worth the $2.00 I spent on it secondhand.

[Cybercrone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good stories and even introduced me to some writers who have written novels that I'd like to read.

[Jessica Kruse · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s an anthology, so I didn’t expect to enjoy every story. Unfortunately I only really enjoyed one or two. And as some other reviewers have pointed out, most of them are not mystery.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea. No positive outcome in any of the stories.

[Brad Hodges · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Mystery" is a restricting word. Not all of the stories in this solid collection are the "whodunit" variety. I guess when it gets down to it, they all involve crime of some sort, usually murder but not always. This has been the story for millennia, as writers have always been interested in the dark side of the human psyche--what happens when people don't abide by the rules.

Edited by popular crime writer Lisa Scottoline, we get a wide assortment of stories that involve breaking the law, by some of our finest writers and some who are new to me (and one that was published posthumously). From Michael Connelly is "A Fine Mist of Blood," which features his detective Harry Bosch. From Bill Pronzini comes a Quincannon story, his detective in 1890s San Francisco, with "Gunpowder Alley," a locked-room mystery. Joyce Carol Oates is represented with a story about an awkward teenage girl being stalked, "So Near Any Time Always," which has echoes of her famous story "Where Are You Going Where Have You Been."

From more unknown writers comes "The Ring of Kerry," which could be the plot an Alfred Hitchcock Presents show, by Dennis McFadden, and "The Don's Cinnamon," by Ben Stroud, set in 1850s Havana.

A couple of stories aren't great, but I loved the opening lines, which is in itself a fine art in the telling of noir tales. From "Smothered and Covered," by Tom Barlow: "The young girl walked into the Waffle House, alone, at 3 A.M. on a Thursday morning. We all looked up from our coffee and cigarettes, waffles, sausage and hash browns. She stood on her tiptoes to take a seat on a counter stool, picked up a menu and held it close to her face, like on of the 6 A.M. retirees without his bifocals." Now, can anyone not read that paragraph and not want to read on?

Even better is this sentence from Hannah Tinti's "Bullet Number Two," set in the Four Corners region of the Southwest: "Now Hawley had a car of his own, and Old Ford Flareside, and he opened up the engine on the highway, the windows rolled down and the blazing hot air channeling through, the sand blowing against his skin and the red cliffs of Arizona stretching into the distance. Behind his seat were a twenty-gauge Remington shotgun, a 9mm Beretta, a Sig Sauer pistol, a crossbow tire iron, his father's rifle from the war, and $7,000." That is a grand sentence.

Many of the stories here come from two magazines: Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, both of which I read as a kid and am glad to learn they are still in business. A few of them come from the Akashic location-centric noir series, including Patricia Smith's "When They Are Done With Us," which comes from Staten Island Noir. I've never been to Staten Island except to pass through it, so I don't know how true this line is: "The key to happiness on Staten Island, she decided, was to get as close as you could to the sky and makes the assholes as small as possible." This story contains one of the most repellent sons a mother could want, and could put a person off from giving birth.

My favorite two stories in this collection are "The Indian," a novella really, by Randall Silvis, and "The Street Ends at the Cemetery," by Clark Howard. The former is about a grudge between a man and his brother-in-law, that appears to be about a restored Indian motorcycle, but is much deeper. It is beautifully wrought, shattering piece of work. Howard's story is about a prison guard that gets involved with a visitor and that classic crime story trope, the suitcase full of money. This time it's the proceeds from a bank robbery, and the visitor's boyfriend, who is locked up, knows its whereabouts. A crooked FBI agent and a crooked prison warden want in on the action, and the double-crosses are fast and furious. It would make a good movie.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do like the "Best American..." book series'. I will often pick up the Science and Nature collection and the Essays collections, and have picked up the Science Fiction collection and even the comics collection in the past, but this is the first time I've read the Best American Mystery Stories collection. And it won't be my last.

One of the many nice things about a collection such as this is the variety of styles and voices that we get exposed to.  This collection seemed one of the most diverse among all the different "Best American" books I've read.  If you already like mystery fiction, then this is a collection you'll want to read.  If you aren't sure if you like mysteries, then this is a great place to start because there is surely something in here that will speak to most every reader.

My stand-outs would include Eileen Dreyer's "The Sailor in the Picture" and Clark Howard's "The Street Ends at the Cemetary" and "So Near Any Time Always" by Joyce Carol Oates.  Yes...Joyce Carol Oates.  Bill Pronzini is always a good read, and his "Gunpowder Alley" is a strong story.

But I must say that it was difficult to point out my favorites as there really are no weak stories in this collection.  It's definitely worth picking up!

This collection includes:

Forward -- Otto Penzler
Intorduction by Lisa Scottoline
"Smothered and Covered" -- Tom Barlow
"A Fine Mist of Blood" -- Michael Connelly
"Misprision of Felony" -- O'Neil de Noux
"The Sailor in the Picture" -- Eileen Dreyer
"The Devil to Pay" -- David Edgerley Gates
"The Street Ends at the Cemetery" -- Clark Howard
"Crossing" -- Andre Kocsis
"Remora, IL"-- Kevin Leahy
"Thy Shiny Car in the Night: -- Nick Mamatas
"Drifter" -- Emily St. John Mandel
"The Ring of Kerry" -- Dennis McFadden
"Quarry" -- Micah Nathan
"So Near Any Time Always" -- Joyce Carol Oates
"Light Bulb" -- Nancy Pickard
"Gunpowder Alley" -- Bill Pronzini
"When They Are Done With Us" -- Patricia Smith
"The Indian" -- Randall Silvis
"The Don's Cinnamon" -- Ben Stroud
"Bullet Number Two" -- Hannah Tinti
"Bound" -- Maurine Dallas Watkins

Looking for a good book? The Best American Mystery Stories 2013 is a collection that could make fans of the genre for new readers and existing fans won't want to miss it.

[E.G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always loved short stories, and I go through an anthology looking forward to the roller coaster ride of a mixed bag of styles. The pieces that remain with me, the ones that I still think about days after finishing them, always send me looking for the next collection.
"The Indian," "Remora, Il," "Drifter," and "When They Were Done With Us" are the four that really stand out for me. "Remora, Il" has the most resonance because on so many levels, it is a metaphor for what our world is becoming. "Drifter" has a magnetic pull that I could not escape, even as I saw how it was going to turn out. I read the last few pages of it cringing. "When They Were Done With Us" has wonderfully drawn characters that seem to push the reader around a little, forcing you to see the world entirely through one woman's eyes. "The Indian" is a story that travels a lot -- in terms of number of characters and their depth, as well as time period. It is the longest story in the book, and uses that space well.
In addition to well-written character studies, I also enjoy clever stories and puzzle mysteries, and this volume had several to choose from. "The Sailor in the Picture" is one that fits together perfectly when you're done. The impact on me as I read the last line I liken to closing the door on a freshly-organized cabinet. "Gunpowder Alley" is a classic murder mystery motif, and I enjoyed the setup but was disappointed in the ending.
All in all, I think there is something in this volume for anyone and overall quality deserves a 4-star rating.

[J.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Penzler’s anthologies, particularly the annual mystery one, are always worth a reader’s time. And this 2013 edition is no exception.

That said, defining these stories as mysteries is a bit of a stretch, since the term entails a puzzle to be solved. Crime stories would be more appropriate, as a crime of some sort is at the root of each.

This is not a criticism of Otto Penzler and this year’s guest editor, Lisa Scottoline. They have assembled an excellent collection of 20 stories, some by very familiar names, such as Michael Connelly, Bill Pronzini, Joyce Carol Oates, and O’Neil De Noux. Others were not as familiar.

Naming favorites is only a matter of personal taste; like choosing the right wine for a particular course. On that personal basis, though, there are stories here which stuck with me after reading them and entice me to want more from the particular author.

One of those was “The Indian” by Randall Silvis, more of a novella than a short story. There’s hardly a story that isn’t fine in its own right. Some others I especially enjoyed would be Eileen Dreyer’s “The Sailor in the Picture;” Ben Stroud’s “The Don’s Cinnamon,” and Pronzini’s “Gunpowder Alley, the most recent of his Quincannon stories.

The volume concludes with contributor notes, giving biographical sketches and comments on the origin of the stories.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first foray into a book specifically of short stories. I have wandered across a few here and there but never gave them much thought. What I found in these pages really surprised me. For the most part, they are well thought out and plotted without the usual tangents that some authors tend to wander into while trying to run up word counts so they can call it a novel.

The stories run about 15 to 20 pages, which makes it a perfect lunchtime read. Each day I would grab my lunch and book and would find myself absorb, start to finish, in a plotline that by the end had me filling in a couple of my own blanks – wondering aloud, did the author mean this or that. Did my presumed antagonist really do that? I loved the fact that not all questions were answered. That the authors drew nice black and white lines and it was up to the readers to filling in their own colors.

[Michelle Powers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short stories. Some I liked more than others. Overall though, the stories lacked the element of mystery I like. They didn't have a question of "who done it?"

Many were more just studies of psychos or sad and/or dangerous situations: a mother with an abusive and criminal son; a young girl being stalked by her slightly older, charming but psychotic boyfriend; a divorced couple grieving the loss of their own child who don't realize until it's too late that they are witnessing a crime that leads to a young girl's death.

The authors are all well known and talented, and the stories were interesting but not what I was expecting or really wanted. If someone is looking for a book of short stories that dealt with the dark side of humanity- I would recommend this, but for actual "who done it?" mysteries- look elsewhere.

[MartyAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, this book has the same feel and feedback of the other Christmas "Sampler" I read, so here I go quoting myself:

Only for the most intrepid readers. Get ready to be thrown into a book -- over and over. (A bit like tossed salad.)

Don't expect to start at the beginning and end at the... end. Just take the chaos as it comes. I would recommend not listening to music at the same time, for the sake of your sanity. I WOULD suggest you stop between stories to eat some fine chocolate. And then proceed. The chocolate will soothe the mind.

The best part here: Hearing new author voices. Getting a chunk of an intriguing story you can then open a new window and buy. The downside is the tossed salad. Mystery lovers never like the work "tossed" to apply to their own world!

[Andy Henion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished the 2013 edition, edited by Lisa Scottoline. As is often the case, there are too many "Ellery Queen" snoozers among the list of 20 (including a Joyce Carol Oates story, of course. In the words of Keyshawn Johnson: C'mon, man!). The best story, far and away, is the noir thriller "Crossing" by Andre Kocsis, which originally appeared in The New Orphic Review (which doesn't seem to have much of a website that I can find). Patricia Smith's "When They Are Done With Us" (from Staten Island Noir) and Hannah Tinti's "Bullet Number Two" (Tin House) also shine. And, good to see a story from Needle in the group (Tom Barlow's "Smothered and Covered.") Overall, a decent anthology. Into the collection it goes ...

[Mitsuru · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very difficult to rate this anthology. Many readers think of what was the mystery story. While I was beginning to read this book,
I wondered whether to conjtinue reading, for I didn't deem that the first seven stories were mysteries. However, they were good stories as a short story. After finishing I thought this anthology was so so. I have a favor to ask of the series editor, Otto Penzler not to set out the stories by the alphabetical order.
Enjoyable stories are 「Gunpowder Alley」 by Bill Pronzini, 「Crossing」 by Andre Kocsis, and 「The Don's Cinnamon」 by Ben Stroud.
「The Indian」 by Randall Silvis is also wonderful.

[S.W. Hubbard · Rating 4 out of 5]

As many reviewers have already stated, there are really crime stories, nit mysteries in the sense of "whodunnit." It's very challenging to write a true mystery story, as I well know from trying, because there is not much space to lay out clues and red herrings. So mystery/crime stories tend to be more character studies, with emphasis on the why, not the who. I like reading this collection every year as a way to study the craft of short fiction. I don't always agree with the selections made, but this year's anthology had some compelling stories. I particularly liked "The Ring of Kerry", "Bound" and the chilling "When They are Done with Us."