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The Best American Mystery Stories 2013 (2013)

by Lisa Scottoline(Favorite Author)

3.52 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0544034600 (ISBN13: 9780544034600)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Mariner Books

review 1: This first-rate collection includes a few genuine mysteries, but is mostly noir stories of adventure, mob and terrorist conspiracies, vendettas, modern-day pirates of various ilk and of course, capers gone horribly wrong. This year's selections include a lot of historical fiction, too--from mid-19th century Havana to Times Square on V-E Day, to the big-haired 80s to New Orleans in the early "00"ze (now also fading into the past.) Standouts for me were Kevin Leahy's "Remora, IL" (a dying rustbelt town that tries to stay alive by attaching itself to the shark of a corporate prison), Joyce Carol Oates's "So Near Any Time Always" (a very tense story that captures the menace of a physical and psychological stalker), and Patricia Smith's "When They Are Done with Us," a devastati... moreng story of a mother at risk from those closest to her. Smith's story stayed with me for days after reading it and was by far the most effective story in a collection of effective stories that uses the noir and mystery genres to convey bigger questions of justice, retribution, and honor. I read this "Best of" every year, and Scottoline's compilation is one of the best.
review 2: Like most anthologies, this one was difficult to rate. Few of the stories were "bad"; most were interesting, but forgettable, and a few were really good. One was outstanding. If I continue to think about a story for days, or even weeks after reading it, I consider that remarkable. In this anthology, I would rate the following stories as Good: "A Fine Mist of Blood" by Michael Connelly, "The Sailor in the Picture" by Eileen Dreyer, "The Street Ends at the Cemetery" by Clark Howard, "Remora, IL" by Kevin Leahy, "The Shiny Car in the Night" by Nick Mamatas, "Light Bulb" by Nancy Pickard, and "Bullet Number Two" by Hannah Tinti. By far, the outstanding work in this collection is "The Indian" by Randall Silvis. At 50 pages, it might be considered a novella rather than a short story, and the extra length could be one of the reasons that the characters are so well developed. The author has won several literary competitions as well as two NEA literature fellowships. Although he says he does not remember the genesis of "The Indian", he does call it "an elegy to small-town life". I might call it a clinical dissection of what it means to be a family. less

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