The Best of the Best American Mystery Stories: The First Ten Years

by Otto Penzler (Editor)

Twenty great whodunnits from the first decade of this series, edited by the award-winning editor and founder of the Mysterious Press.

This anthology collects the top twenty stories from the first decade (1997–2006) of The Best American Mystery Stories, selected and introduced by Otto Penzler. Contributors include Russell Banks, Jeffrey Deaver, Louise Erdrich, Brendan DuBois, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Lou Manfredo, Ed McBain, Joyce Carol Oates, Scott Turow, and many others.

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

474 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2013

About the author

Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.

Otto Penzler founded The Mysteriour Press in 1975 and was the publisher of The Armchair Detective, the Edgar-winning quarterly journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction, for seventeen years.

Penzler has won two Edgar Awards, for The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection in 1977, and The Lineup in 2010. The Mystery Writers of America awarded him the prestigious Ellery Queen Award in 1994, and the Raven--the group's highest non-writing award--in 2003.

Reviews

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure I would consider any of these stories Mysteries. My definition of a mystery would be one where there is something to be solved. Most of these stories aren't mysteries; you know exactly what is going on most of time. Its kind of like slow motion train wrecks.

This is not to say they aren't interesting; they are. Also these are mostly male based stories

[Ben Loory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the stories by JCO, Hannah Tinti, Jeffery Deaver, William Gay... some others. Book is hindered a little by repeating so many stories from the earlier Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, also edited by Otto Penzler. Also tbh there are some real stinkers at the end of this.

[Ryan Hatch · Rating 2 out of 5]

4.5/10
I won't say that this was a complete waste of my time, but it wasn't far off. I enjoyed my first Best American Stories book so much and I usually like a good mystery so my expectations going in were pretty high. First, almost all of these stories are not what I would consider true 'mysteries;' this would probably be better described as a book of Crime or Thriller stories. Along with that, many of the stories weren't that good. Far too often I felt like I was just reading another random cop story with uninspired writing and an even worse plot. I should point out that Joyce Carol Oates and one other author whose name I forgot to jot down, gave me the two bright points in an otherwise dismal book.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mystified by this book

This collection of short stories boasts an impressive list of writers. Yet I did not really feel they were mysteries nor were they particularly good reading. The stories were more macabre than anything. Some of them were just boring. I expected more.

[LdyGray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Otto Penzler is a preeminent mystery editor and proprietor of a bookstore dedicated solely to mystery fiction. So he definitely knows better than I do what constituents a "mystery" story, and therefore perhaps this is one of those books where my star rating is more about my enjoyment of the story and less a reflection of the quality of the book. I usually expect my mysteries to have some degree of, well, mystery (like who committed a crime, or how the detective will prove it, or even why the crime was committed in the first place). The majority of these stories, on the other hand, seem to me to be straightforward crime novels; that is, they describe a crime, often in gory detail, but do not contain any puzzle about it. Many of them - more than one might expect from any short story collection - contain gore, detailed sexual assault, and/or ethnic slurs. So me, personally, I didn't like it.

I should have been more suspicious of this portion of Penzler's intro:

[These] stories were selected for only one reason: their excellence. No story was ever picked because it was by a "name" or because it was a bestseller or because it was written by a friend or because it appeared in an important publication. Neither were any selected because of someone's idea of an appropriate demographic. Criticism has been leveled at the series because the books did not contain some arbitrarily cited notion of what should have been in them: more young authors, more women, more detective stories, more Southern writers, more stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, more cozy writers. Conversely, there have been cries about what should not have been in these books: too many noir writers, too many crime stories, too many "literary" stories, too many Southern writers, too many stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, too many stories with dirty words, blah, blah, blah. These comments have been offered by those who abuse the privilege of being stupid, but I thank them for their interest.

Count me among the "stupid" who have disagreed with Mr. Penzler. And allow me just to note that of the 20 stories he considers the "best of the best," more are by male authors from NYC (4 stories) than by either women (3 stories) or people of color (0 stories).

Read for the BookRiot 2022 challenge.

[Cary Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Remember when you were dating and you would be out with a perfectly fine and good person and when you parted, after a satisfying meal, you hugged and said 'good bye.' And you walked away thinking, meh. Or sometimes you, or your love interest, got further than one or two dates, but eventually reached the same conclusion. Nice, but no sparkle. And then one of you would say something like, 'it's not you, it's me.' What followed would be any one of a number of valid reasons why it didn't make sense to continue seeing each other. You needed more seasoning. You had deep and profound spiritual differences. One of you were determined to have a family. You get the idea.

I was prepared to fall in love with this volume. I mean, I love mystery stories and this volume was culled from the first ten years of the Best American Mystery Stories annual collections, so how could I lose? And it had solid, literary authors in it; Russell Banks, Jeffrey Deaver, Louise Erdrich, for god's sake. Not to mention Joyce Carol Oates. While some of these stories hit the mark quite well, one or two even reading more like sustained, beautiful prose poetry than fiction, many of the others, for me, missed the mark. And I felt, well, meh.

But, hey, in fairness I gotta say it was probably just me. I guess I encountered these amazing stories at the wrong time in the wrong place and from the wrong perspective. Maybe you'll have better luck.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 - excellent collection of 20 short stories. The pick of the bunch from annual collections over 10 years; 1997 - 2006.
Hot Springs: football coach runs away with his girlfriend to a secluded cabin in a mountainside resort with natural hot spring baths. Her older husband R. L. Dark and his cronies catch up to them.
The Weekender: drugstore robbery goes wrong and two guys kidnap a “weekender” in a small resort town. They hid out in a vacant house and he ends up turning the tables.
Dark Snow: retired special forces guy buys a home by a lake and is harassed by the locals on boats and then come winter, on snowmobiles.
Karen Makes Out: female US Marshall starts dating a guy that ends up being a bank robber.
Red Clay: actress Stella Doyle has moved back to her small home town to get married to a wealthy local guy. An apparent suicide and she’s initially charged with it before getting off. A young boys father used to date her and goes to see to offer his support. After his fathers death the young boy sees her in Europe where they have dinner and she tells him she did it.
Faithless: story of a girl who’s mother and aunt grew up on a farm with their father after their mother apparently ran away. Long after their death the girl hear that her grandmothers body is unearthed in the property.
Poachers: Excellent, longer short story about 3 young men (brothers), who poach and live in the backwoods. A local store owner looks out for them. They kill a game warden and a legendary older game warden comes for retribution.
Running out of dog: two lifelong friends in a small town both love the same woman, Blue is a bit unhinged and his friend ends up shooting him after he realizes he killed her.
Lobster night: my least favorite as it didn’t make sense. Stacy is a former college skier who works as a bartender during the summers. Her boss is overly flirty and after a long shift (where he goes out and shoots a bear) she shoots him. Random.
The Paperhanger: another bizarre one where a little girl goes missing during the renovation of a large house. The creepy wallpaper hanger isn’t suspected but a long while later he give the Indian lady the girls body. Also random.
It is raining in Bedjucal: guy in a remote village in South America wins the lottery and goes to the big city to find and have revenge on his estranged father (who killed his mother). He spends all the money using a private detective, he finds out he’s being screwed and has his revenge. He goes back to his village penniless but happy.
Midnight Emissions: boxing manager and trainer get in a bind when they’re prize heavyweight loses sight in one eye. Heavyweight keeps it to himself and mills them for money. They have their revenge though.
Home sweet home: lady finds out her husband is cheating with the next door neighbor. She kills the lady and her husband and is never suspected. Very short and pretty basic.
All through the house: very good story. Husband kills his whole family on Christmas Eve and as the story works backwards to the beginning we find out he knew his wife was cheating with his best friend.
Disaster stamps of Pluto: random story about to old ladies in a dying town in North Dakota. The tell of one of their uncles who collected stamps and stamped mail found after disasters. It’s a story about living in the same town your whole life never knowing the whole story about people.
When all this was bay ridge: story of a young guy who after his ex police detective Fathers funeral he finds out some things about his dad. Pretty average story...
Case closed: brand new detective and a veteran solve the crime of a drug addict sexually abusing women. The catch the guy only to find him dead and talk about pretending he confessed before he died to “close the case”. Decent.
Loyalty: a guy tells his friend a story about possibly witnessing an old Russian guy committing a murder. His friend then unknowingly starts dating the Russian guys daughter. He tells the daughter the story breaking his loyalty to his friend and the daughter dumps him. Average.
Her lord and master: guy starts dating a girl and he tells his friend about her dark side in the bedroom. She kills him and looks like she might get away with it because it looks like she was abused. The friend won’t let that happen.
Improvisation: guy picks up a girl in a bar and she suggests trying to pick up another girl. It turns out to be her sister and they turn out to be sociopaths.

[Robert P. Hoffman]

(1) Hot Springs James Crumley. A great story. The characters are so well drawn even though none of them evoke any sympathy. The dialogue is great, the story so well told, and the ending is a good twist that is credible.
(2) The Weekender Jeffrey Deaver. Jeffrey Deaver is an outstanding writer and his works are consistently good. For some of his novels the twists become a bit too much. This story has one twist, it is well done, and it makes the story memorable.
(3) The Dark Snow. An intriguing character and a well written story and an interesting ending. But it didn't draw me in.
(4) Karen Makes Out. A strong female character, a somewhat predictable plot, but worth reading.
(5) Red Clay. A masterpiece. The characters are so compelling, the writing is beautiful, and the story is of much interest. Unlike Hot Springs where I felt no sympathy for the characters in this story although all the characters are flawed people I was drawn into the story and had interest about their lives.
(6) Faithless. I put this off until the end because I thought it would be less than compelling and my prediction was correct. It just meandered along and ended with a wimper.
(7) Poachers. Just an awful story with the most uninteresting and repellant characters imaginable and a plot that meanders all over the place.
(8) Just marginally better than Poachers with a plot that is so predictable.
(9) Lobster Night. A moderately interesting story but one where I had little interest in the outcome of the story (which was announced at the beginning of the story) or the characters.
(10) Paperhanger. I did not care for this. It just rambles along, the characters are one dimensional, and the ending is predictable.
(11) It is Raining in Bejucal. Well-written with an interesting plot and a moderately interesting ending.
(12) Midnight Emissions. Throw in all the clichés and usual plot developments and you get a predictable story that while well written is not that worthy of reading.
(13) Home Sweet Home. A mini masterpiece that has a great beginning, weaves in the stories of some many believable characters and has a wonderful ending. One of the best stories in the collection.
(14) All Through the House. Stunning. The way the author weaves between different days and years, develops a compelling story line, and just when I thought the story might peter out he comes up with an ending that is stunning.
(15) Disaster Stamps of Pluto. An amazing short story. I can't think of a better short story than this. It is so well written, moves along at a seemingly leisurely pace but is filled with wonderful stories. And the ending is so satisfying. A masterpiece.
(16) When All This Was Bay Ridge. I could not connect with this, it seems as though stories like this are a dime a dozen, again plot developments that were not original at all.
(17) Case Closed. A solid, well-written story, although the whole genre of good cops and corrupt cops, and working with questionable partners does seem to be less than original.
(18) Loyalty Scott Turow. I find this to be less than a compelling story. It just meanders around, has characters who reflect on how their lives have not turned out the way they had hoped, and an ending that is not that compelling.
(19) Her Lord and Master. A great story because the author is willing to write a story about an event that I was not clear as to what happened, characters that are of great interest, and a story that is almost as good as Gone Girl.
(20) Improvisation. Ed McBain cannot write a bad story but this story while of some interest is of little substance and the reader will soon forget most of the story.

[Deb L · Rating 2 out of 5]

no thank you

Reviewing for my mother. After reading the first 3 and he beginning of the remaining stories until deciding one by one not to finish them, I believe I'll skip any more of these collections. Every story was dark and depressing. Not what I consider entertaining at all. If you like dark depressing stories, maybe you'll love it. What I read was very well written (thus, the 2 stars) just not my style nor the style of anyone I know. There could have been a mixture of styles, or should be something in the title or on the cover suggesting it was a collection of dark tales. I have pictures in my head and undesired emotions that linger from some of what I read that are unwelcome. An uninvited intrusion and a waste of good talent, in my opinion. If this is the best America could do in 10. years, that explains a lot regarding the many challenges we currently face as a world of angry and depressed people.

[Gabriela Galescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good selection

Most of the stories make for very good reading. Some of them are even memorable. Moreover, I found them all very well written.

It’s a matter of personal taste that I get bored to tears with “Western mysteries, or anything in that vein. Small, deserted, dusty towns with “strong and quiet” kind of characters just don’t engage me. However, even those stories in the collection have some literary value.

[Bruno Di Giandomenico · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my kind of mysteries. These stories run around some killing and describe (quite well, honestly) American stories. Always gory, except a few, and judging them as mysteries just because there are people shot or stabbed in some way.
Sorry, I read it all, from the point of view of the story telling it is not bad, most of the stories are located in deep America, which is quite far from the rest of the world.
I can’t honestly award more stars.

[Cybercrone · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good bunch of stories. Many I'd read before in the yearly roundups, but had missed a few.

Beware though, Penzler is a noir fan and some of these stories will make you want to crawl into bed with a pillow over your head and stay there to avoid any contact with the human race.

[Dipra Lahiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

More crime fiction and noir than mystery, but an excellent collection from some very big names and some less known. The Americans have kept the short story alive and well, and this collection showcases a wide diversity in styles.

[Matt Cantillon · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, gripping stories.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the stories did not seem like mysteries. I really didn't enjoy them-too dark for my taste.

[Rica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected more from a book purporting to feature "The Best of the Best." Not a single one of these stories blew me away.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

They were not mysteries, just short stories with someone dying in them. Very disappointed will never purchase a book in this or any of their associated series.

[David Davy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fun, with stories from old favorites and well known authors I hadn't read before.

[julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book asks a brave question: "what if the best american mystery stories...were bad?"

you would think that someone involved in the creation of this book would have realized that a "mystery" is not just any story where a crime is committed. there is not a single whodunit in this collection. extremely disappointing. almost every single story is about a super poor white guy from the rural south who is sleeping with an extremely beautiful woman who is too young for him (or too old for him, for diversity!)and/or married to someone else, and then someone gets killed but there is never a single ounce of mystery about who did it. honestly it was almost impressive how repetitive it was. some of the worst "men writing women" I've seen in a long time. Like truly horrendous. special mention to "Karen Makes Out" on that front. and they all have the same names for some reason. so many susans, so many jims, so many karens.

star added for joyce carol oates's story. while again NOT A MYSTERY, the story was excellent and the woman herself is so goddamn weird. love her.

[Reet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hot Springs, by James Crumpet
2 ⭐

The Weekender, by Jeffery Dealer
4 ⭐

The Dark Snow, by Brendan DuBois
3 ⭐

Karen Makes Out, by Elmore Leonard
2 ⭐

Red Clay, by Michael Malone
2 ⭐

Faithless, by Joyce Carol Oates
3 ⭐ I knew what the ending was going to be in this.

Poachers, by Tom Franklin
4 ⭐ Haha! Sweet revenge.

Running out of Dog, by Dennis Lehanec
2 ⭐

Lobster Night, by Russell Banks
3 ⭐ it got an extra star for letting Stacy kill the pendejo who shot the bear and killed the lobster.

The Paperhanger, by William Gay
4 ⭐

It is Raining in Bejucal, by John Biguenet
3 ⭐

Midnight Emissions, by F.X. Toole
2 ⭐

Home Sweet Home, by Hannah Tinti
1 ⭐

All Through the House, by Christopher Coake
4 ⭐

Disaster Stamps of Pluto, by Louise Erdrich
3 ⭐

When All This Was Bay Ridge, by Tim McLoughlin
2 ⭐

Case Closed, by Lou Manfredo
3 ⭐

Loyalty, by Scott Turow
1 ⭐

Her Lord and Master, by Andrew Klavan
1 ⭐

Improvisation, by Ed McBain
2 ⭐

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

*Lobster night / Russell Banks (2001)--
It is raining in Bejucal / John Biguenet (2002)--
All through the house / Christopher Coake (2004, also best noir)--
Hot springs / James Crumley (1997)--
The weekender / Jeffery Deaver (1997, also best noir)--
The dark snow / Brendan DuBois (1997)--
*The disaster stamps of Pluto / Louise Erdrich (2005)--
Poachers / Tom Franklin (1999)--
The paperhanger / William Gay --3
Her lord and master / Andrew Klavan (2006, also best noir)--
Running out of dog / Dennis Lehane (2000)--
Karen makes out / Elmore Leonard (1997, also 50 greatest)--
Improvisation / Ed McBain (2006)--
When all this was Bay Ridge / Tim McLoughlin (2005)--
*Red clay / Michael Malone (1997)--
Case closed / Lou Manfredo (2005)--
*Faithless / Joyce Carol Oates (1998, also best noir)--
Home sweet home / Hannah Tinti (2003)--
Midnight emissions / F.X. Toole (2002, also best noir)--
Loyalty / Scott Turow (2005)--