Product Description

The year's twenty best American mystery stories in a collection that will delight mystery buffs and casual readers alike. This collection includes stories by Jeffery Deaver, Dennis Lehane and Robert Girardi. Previous collections have been edited by: 1997 Robert B. Parker; 1998 Sue Grafton; 1999 Ed McBain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2110349 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
'A sterling collection.' Publishers Weekly 'Most readers just want to be amused, excited or shocked ... the authors showcased here manage to do this in spades... Recommended.' London Evening Standard

London Evening Standard
Most readers just want to be amused, excited or shocked..the
authors showcased here manage to do this in spades...

From the Inside Flap
Showcasing the very best of American crime writing, here are twenty stand-out short stories notable for their dark tone, frequent plot twists, and - above all - their outright entertainment value. Dennis Lehane opens 'Until Gwen' in a stolen Dodge Neon with an 8-ball of coke in the glove compartment and a hooker named Mandy in the back seat and accelerates from there, Louise Erdrich's 'Disaster Stamps of Pluto' leads us into a nearly extinct North Dakota town where the dead outnumber the living, Daniel Handler poses a classic 'locked room' mystery in 'Delmonico' while Joseph Raiche's 'One Mississippi' takes a hellish subway journey and David Rachel's 'The Last Man I Killed' follows a path that winds from the Eastern Front in 1945 to a midwestern state university twenty years later.
Selected by award-winning novelist and short story writer Joyce Carol Oates, The Best American Mystery Stories contains tales from bestselling authors and newcomers alike. The veterans demonstrate the skills that have made them masters of the genre, while the (as yet) unknowns clearly mark themselves as talents to watch.