The Best American Mystery Stories

Brief Description: "A must-read for anyone who cares about crime stories."--Booklist The award-winning author and Emmy-nominated television writer George Pelecanos serves as editor of the twelfth installment of this genre-expanding anthology, featuring twenty of the past year's most enthralling, suspenseful, and slyly illuminating mystery stories. A cut-and-dried case for a wily crime-scene reconstructionist is turned on its head in Michael Connelly's "Mulholland Dive." A terrible secret shared between two childhood friends resurfaces decades later as one of them lies on her deathbed in Alice Munro's masterful "Child's Play." James Lee Burke tells the haunting tale of a Hurricane Katrina evacuee who unexpectedly finds comfort from an unimaginable loss in "Mist." And in Holly Goddard Jones's "Proof of God," a young man's car is repeatedly vandalized as proof that someone knows about the truths he'd never willingly reveal. As Pelecanos notes in his introduction, the twenty "original and unique voices" in this collection pay homage to the genre's forebears by taking crime fiction into a thrilling new direction. "But make no mistake," he says, "we are all standing on the shoulders of writers who came before us and left an indelible mark on literature through craftsmanship, care, and the desire to leave something of worth behind."Publisher Marketing: Edited by George Pelecanos, best-selling author and writer for the hit HBO series The Wire, this year's collection promises to deliver the same stellar caliber of mystery stories that readers have come to expect from this series. A must-read for anyone who cares about crime stories (Booklist), the collection is filled with talented new voices and veterans of fine writing. Contributors include James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, and Scott Wolven. Review Citations:

Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2008 pg. 919 (EAN 9780618812677, Paperback)

Contributor Bio:  Pelecanos, George P George P. Pelecanos is the author of nine richly praised crime novels set in and around Washington D. C., including Hell to Pay, Right as Rain, The Sweet Forever, Shame the Devil, King Suckerman, and The Big Blowdown. Contributor Bio:  Penzler, Otto Otto Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop, the founder of the Mysterious Press, the creator of Otto Penzler Books, and the editor of many books and anthologies.