Best American mystery stories
"With so many great authors contributing to this fiction collection . . . it doesn't take detecting skills to discover the gem. And every story dazzles . . . These stories, in prose both elegant and compelling, get to the heart of why people do what they do." — USA Today
The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 will be selected by "writing powerhouse" (USA Today) Laura Lippman. With her popular Tess Monaghan series and
...An unparalleled treasury of crime, mystery, and murder from the genre's founding century
With stories by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, and Jack London, The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century is an essential anthology of American letters. It's a unique blend of beloved writers who contributed to the genre and forgotten
...“Some people might tell you that crime short stories, unlike the more precious kind, are a kind of fictional ghetto, full of cardboard characters and clichéd situations. Not true. These stories are remarkably free of bullshit—although...
Writing short stories takes "Skill. Discipline. Knowledge of the form while not being formulaic," contends Louise Penny in her introduction. "In a short story there is nowhere to hide. Each must...