The Best American Mystery Stories 1998

by Sue Grafton (Editor), Otto Penzler (Editor)

Overview

This year's guest editor, Sue Grafton, has put together a wonderfully diverse collection of stories to surprise and satisfy all fans of the genre. In this volume, best-selling writers such as Mary Higgins Clark, Walter Mosley, Lawrence Block, Jay McInerney, and Donald E. Westlake stand alongside an impressive array of new talent. As Grafton writes in her introduction, "Nowhere is iniquity, wrongdoing, and reparation more satisfying to behold than in the well-crafted yarns spun by the writers represented here." Already a bestseller in its first year, this year's collection of The Best American Mystery Stories promises to keep readers intrigued and coming back for more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780395835852
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/30/1998
Series:	Best American Mystery Stories Series
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	793,677
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

OTTO PENZLER is a renowned mystery editor, publisher, columnist, and owner of New York’s The Mysterious Bookshop, the oldest and largest bookstore solely dedicated to mystery fiction. He has edited more than fifty crime-fiction anthologies. He lives in New York.

Hometown:

Montecito, California and Louisville, Kentucky

Date of Birth:

April 24, 1940

Place of Birth:

Louisville, Kentucky

Education:

B.A. in English, University of Louisville, 1961

Website:

http://www.suegrafton.com/

What People are Saying About This

Sue Grafton

Nowhere is iniquity, wrongdoing, and reparation more satisfying to behold than in the well-crafted yarns spun by the writers represnted here. While we're plunged into darkness by their skill and imagination, we're simultaneously reassured that we are safe. . .from ourselves.

Editorial Reviews

Broad in scope and crackling with tension. The masters of the genre put in peerless performances. . .The lesser names also provide their share of surprises. -- Entertainment Weekly

Nikki Amdur

Series editor Otto Penzler, who picked the 50 stories from which Grafton culled the 20 in this volume, has ranged far afield in search of what Grafton aptly calls crime stories, and the rewards are substantial. Scott Bartels's matter-of-fact heroin idyll first appeared in Tamaqua, Merrill Joan Gerber's tale of an ominously pesky fellow-alumnus in Chattahoochee Review, Steve Yarbrough's sorrowful rural reminiscence in 'Missouri Review,' Dave Shaw's droll confession of a chronic slip-and-fall artist in South Dakota Review, Joyce Carol Oates' tormented memoir of a faithless mother in Kenyon Review. Of the entries from more expected sources, the standouts are Stuart Kaminsky's unexpectedly bleak quest for a missing wife, Peter Robinson's deceptively mellowed portrait of two old ladies sharing a cottage, and first-timer David Ballard's remarkably assured spin on Roald Dahl's classic "Man from the South"—-as well as stories by Lawrence Block, John Lutz, and Donald E. Westlake that can also be found in Ed Gorman's rival The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. Not the comprehensive yearbook of the genre Gorman produces, but this year, at least, a more rewarding collection of stories.

Kirkus Reviews