Series: The Best American Mystery Stories
by Author Otto Penzler
The Best American Mystery Stories 2005 (2005)
There were a few standout stories here for me, but mostly this felt like a big pile of Same. Basically, Joyce Carol Oates likes dark stories of the American working class underbelly, heavy on on-the-lam grifters and skeevy predators. No big surprise there, I guess. But I was surprised at how s...
The Best American Mystery Stories 2003 (2003)
Doing a bit of genre-related research, I recently revisited BAMS 2002 and 2003. As might be expected, both anthologies are mixed bags. The best of these crime/mystery stories offer a refreshing contrast to the stories of, say, Annie Proulx or Donald Ray Pollack — they portray toughness and despai...
The Best American Mystery Stories 2002 (2002)
This compilation dates back to 2002 and I picked it up because it was edited by one of my favourite authors, James Ellroy, and contained a story by another of my favourite authors, Michael Connelly, he of Harry Bosch fame. However, it was a few other stories that really stood out for me.The first...