โ Scribed by Joyce Carol Oates; Otto Penzler
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected--and most popular--of its kind.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2005 includes
Scott Turow โข Edward P. Jones โข Louise Erdrich โข Dennis Lehane โข Daniel Handler โข Laura Lippman โข George V. Higgins โข David Means โข Richard Burgin โข Scott Wolven โข Stuart M. Kaminsky โข and others
Joyce Carol Oates, guest editor, is a highly respected novelist, critic, playwright, poet, and short story writer. She is the author of numerous books, including the National Book Award winner Them and most recently the novel The Falls.
Starred Review. Says series editor Otto Penzler, "It's about finding the best stories, by whoever happens to have written them," in his foreword to this outstanding mystery annual. He chose Joyce Carol Oates as this year's guest editor, and Oates almost immediately put her brand on the bookโnot waiting for Penzler to send her the top 50 choices from which she would winnow the 20 final entries, but branching out on her own, finding some of the volume's best stories by beginning writers in small circulation magazines as well as in collections from relatively unknown publishers. There's also much star power, made even more impressive by the editors' resistance to famous names getting in on reputation alone. Dennis Lehane's "Until Gwen," Laura Lippman's "The Shoeshine Man's Regrets," Louise Erdrich's "Disaster Stamps of Pluto" and Scott Turow's "Loyalty" are as good as any full-length novels these writers have produced recently. And what a great pleasure it is to have the remarkable talents of the late George V. Higgins displayed in all their glory in "Jack Duggan's Law."
Copyright ยฉ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Wags might expect this annual anthology, under Oates' guest-editorship, to grow to 1,000 pages--or at least to begin publishing quarterly. Never fear. Collaborating with series general editor Penzler, she has selected a tight 20 stories. In his foreword, Penzler praises the genre-blurring evolution of "mystery" stories and provides proof of his premise in the following pages. The roster includes well-known surnames--Erdrich, Higgins, Kaminsky, Lehane, Sayles, and Turow--but the lesser-knowns (culled more often from literary journals and even e-zines) deliver delightful surprises: in "The Identity Club," Richard Burgin draws a high-concept karmic circle; in "The Last Man I Killed," David Rachel maps a connection between war and academe; in "Reconstruction," Sam Shaw sends two misfits on the lam; and in "Barracuda," Scott Wolven puts a crooked timber appraiser through a series of left turns. Readers irked by the lack of pure detection can console themselves with "Delmonico," a locked-room noir, by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). For any fan of good storytelling. Keir Graff
Copyright ยฉ American Library Association. All rights reserved
Mystery
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Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads hundreds of pieces from dozens of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That s
Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads hundreds of pieces from dozens of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That s
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The Best American Series(R)First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a lead