Friday's "Forgotten" Books: The Best American Mystery Stories, 1997, ed. Robert B. Parker

The history of the "best of" American mystery short story anthology probably dates back to 1931 and The Best American Mystery Stories of the Year, edited by Carolyn Wells, up through David C. Cooke's Best Detective Stories of the Year published from 1947 to 1959. More modern incarnations have been Edward Hoch's annual mystery anthology for Walker; The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, from the editors of Mystery Scene Magazine, during the 1990s; The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories edited by Ed Gorman; Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year; and The Best American Mystery and Suspense series.

The first Penzler anthology was in 1997 when Houghton Mifflin wanted a mystery version of its already established Best American Short Stories. They contacted Penzler, who said in the Foreword that "it was his responsibility to identify and read all the mystery stories published in the calendar year," a number which totaled 500 from mystery specialty magazines, small literary journals, popular consumer publications, and anthologies.

The editor for the freshman effort in the Penzler series, Robert B. Parker, first reflects on the Hammett-Chandler origins of the American crime story. Then he introduces the collection with the words "As you will see in this collection, the stories remain the story of the hero's adventure in search of a hidden truth.' They are stories about a hero 'fit for adventure' in a time when stories of far bluer blood are still stuck in their bleak corner of the wasteland where Spade took Hammett. This is no small thing." The 20 stories included cover a wide range of thematic material in a variety of authorial styles: from the high society setting of Elizabeth George to the psychological suspense-with-a-twist by Jeffery Deaver, and from Melodye Johnson Howe's Hollywood banality to the humor-noir of Elmore Leonard.

The collection starts off nicely with "Blind Lemon" by Doug Allyn, draped against a backdrop of the blues and music of real-life musician Blind Lemon Jefferson, in which private eye R.B. "Ax" Axton painfully relives a fateful day a decade earlier  when he and a female singer inadvertently caused the murder of a mutual friend. Other standouts include "Tales from the Dark Snow" by Brendan Dubois about a man who retires to bucolic New Hampshire, where he is harassed by persistent and increasingly malevolent neighbors; "Hoops" by S.J. Rozan, featuring Rozan's series character, private eye Bill Smith, who investigates the death of a basketball player, the victim of an apparent murder-suicide after killing his pregnant girlfriend; and "When You're Hungry" by George Pelecanos, a tale of double-crossing and betrayal in the steamy and lawless streets of Brazil.

Ask any author and most will tell you short stories can be harder to write than novels, but when you come across little gems like these, you almost wish the authors would drop the novels and dedicate themselves to the shorter form. The reader benefits, too, from such an anthology, being able to experience one actualized world after another - the literary equivalent of visiting an amusement park, finding some rides more to your liking than others, but having all of them leave you just a little bit breathless.

Comments

[Todd Mason]

And the Cooke annual became the Davis Dresser/"Brett Halliday" annual, which became the William White/"Anthony Boucher" annual, which became the Allen J. Hubin annual, which finally (and for the longest stretch) became the Hoch annual. While the Gorman/Greenberg annuals were (only) a bit less directly the heir to their MYSTERY SCENE annual. Also, briefly, there was a mass-market pb annual from iBooks edited by Jon Breen: Mystery: The Best of 2001 (and 2002). Not to mention the UK series...

[BV Lawson]

Thanks for the additions, Todd! Yes, there have been several of these types of "best of" series through the years, and I'm all for 'em! I'd love to see more, especially since different editors have different tastes and would cover a wider variety of subgenres, I think.