[The Best American Mystery Stories 01] • The Best American Mystery Stories 3

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 pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.

In his introduction to this year's collection, James Ellroy explores the differences between the novel and the short story. Included here are experts at both forms. Featuring renowned novelists like Stuart Kaminsky, Michael Connelly, Joe Gores, and Robert B. Parker, as well as veterans of this series like Brendan DuBois, Michael Downs, Joyce Carol Oates, and Clark Howard, this edition will delight readers with its wide variety and peerless quality.

Contents

Foreword by Otto Penzler

Introduction by James Ellroy

It Is Raining in Bejucal by John Biguenet

Two-Bagger by Michael Connelly

The Fix by Thomas H. Cook

Summa Mathematica by Sean Doolittle

Man Kills Wife, Two Dogs by Michael Downs

A Family Game by Brendan DuBois

The Blue Mirror by David Edgerley Gates

Inscrutable by Joe Gores

The Championship of Nowhere by James Grady

The Cobalt Blues by Clark Howard

Sometimes Something Goes Wrong by Stuart M. Kaminsky

The Mule Rustlers by Joe R. Lansdale

Maniac Loose by Michael Malone

Counting by Fred Melton

You Don't Know Me by Annette Meyers

The High School Sweetheart by Joyce Carol Oates

Harlem Nocturne by Robert B. Parker

Midnight Emissions by F.X. Toole

A Lepidopterist's Tale by Daniel Waterman

The Copper Kings (HHC) by Scott Wolven