Lawrence Block: The Best American Mystery Stories 1999

In the first paragraph, I suggested that two entirely disparate sets of circumstances have come to pass as this series has been published. The second is a bit, shall we say, less fulfilling than the first. It is the relentless, if sometimes well-meaning, second-guessing of readers, critics, authors, and just about anyone who may pass in the street. “Why didn’t you pick X story? Why did you think this story by Y author was better than the other one? You call that a mystery story? Why did you have to pick such a dirty story? Such language! My favorite writer in the whole world is Z, and he wrote a dozen mysteries last year. Couldn’t you pick even one of them?”

None of these is an unfair question. The process of filling a book with what those of us who work on it regard as the best mystery fiction of the year is not an exact science. Informed reading remains somewhat subjective, no matter how hard one tries to be fair.

To pick a couple of authors who deserve to be named, Lawrence Block and Joyce Carol Oates each wrote three stories that could easily have been included in this volume. It wasn’t an easy choice to zero in on the ones that were selected. It wasn’t a whimsical decision. It wasn’t throwing darts at a board. These just appealed to me more, and clearly to the guest editor as well.

What I call a mystery story is not what everyone else would call a mystery story. This will be the third year in a row in which I define my terms, and I will probably continue to do so forever, because it is important. My definition of a mystery is a fictional work in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the plot or theme of the story. The Great Gatsby, in which a murder occurs, is not a mystery, as the entire story has unfolded before that event takes place. Crime and Punishment is a mystery because, without the crime, there is no book. All the stories in this book are mysteries by that definition. Detective stories, which many people use as their narrow definition of a mystery, are merely one subgenre of this literary form.

Many readers are offended by gutter language, descriptive sex, extreme violence, and other elements of some mystery stories in this and in the previous volumes of this series. It just can’t be helped. As an old-fashioned guy, I am often shocked, sometimes offended, by what I see on prime-time television, not to mention what appears in movies and in some literature. This is what is. It does not enter the equation when selecting stories. If you are a little nervous about such things, you can relax. Nothing in this book is any more graphic than the media accounts of President Clinton’s clandestine activities.

Being a popular writer does not necessarily make one a fine writer. Sometimes being a fine writer helps make one a popular writer. The single criterion for selecting the stories for this book, indeed for this series, is that they be well written. Detective story, crime story, suspense story. Makes no difference. By a huge best-selling author or by a first-time author in a small literary magazine. Makes no difference. Clean or dirty, long or short. Makes no difference. Good. That makes the difference.

Writers, editors, and publishers (or the people who love them) who would like to have their work considered for this series, please do feel encouraged to submit stories to me. Any fictional work published in the United States or Canada by an American or Canadian author is eligible. Provide a legible copy of the manuscript, tear sheets, or the entire publication. If the works appears in one of the standard mystery magazines, save the postage, as they are all read carefully. Nothing will be returned, even if you include a self-addressed stamped envelope. No critical remarks will be offered, so please don’t ask. No submissions via electronic mail will be considered. I do not own a computer (though there are several on the premises of my bookshop, I do not consider them mine) and do not know how to turn one on. My assistant is far too busy to print out stories for me. Please screen your submissions. You may, of course, submit as many as you like, but I get nervous when a dozen stories or more appear in an envelope. Gee, I wonder, do you suppose the author really believes they are all that good? Unpublished material is not eligible. Absolute final date for submissions is December 31. You can only imagine the warmth I feel for those who send their stories that were published in April to me during the week before Christmas. Submissions should be sent to Otto Penzler, The Mysterious Bookshop, 129 West 56th Street, New York, New York 10019.

I have been remiss in the past about failing to thank the guest editors in print. Robert B. Parker, Sue Grafton, and now Evan Hunter (Ed McBain) have taken a great deal of time from their very full lives to read a lot of stories, write thoughtful introductions, and even to help promote the books. Clearly, the series would have been diminished without their involvement. I am blessed to have them as colleagues, and even more to have them as friends.

O.P.

There used to be a time when a person could make a decent living writing crime stories. Back then, a hardworking individual could earn two cents a word for a short story. Three cents, if he was exceptionally good. It beat polishing spittoons. Besides, it was fun.

Back then, starting a crime story was like reaching into a box of chocolates and being surprised by either the soft center or the caramel or the nuts. There were plenty of nuts in crime fiction, but you never knew what kind of story would come out of the machine until it started taking shape on the page. Like a jazz piano player, a good writer of short crime fiction didn’t think he knew his job unless he could improvise in all twelve keys. Ringing variations on the theme was what made it such fun. Getting paid two or three cents a word was also fun.

For me, Private Eye stories were the easiest of the lot. All you had to do was talk out of the side of your mouth and get in trouble with the cops. In the PI stories back then, the cops were always heavies. If it weren’t for the cops, the PI could have solved a murder — any murder — in ten seconds flat. The cops were always dragging the PI into the cop shop to accuse him of having murdered somebody just because he happened to be at the scene of the crime before anybody else got there. Sheesh! I always started a PI story with a blonde wearing a tight shiny dress who, when she crossed her legs, you saw rib-topped silk stockings and garters taut against milky white flesh. Boy. Usually, she wanted to find her missing husband or somebody. Usually, the PI fell in love with her by the end of the story, but he had to be careful because you couldn’t trust girls who crossed their legs to show their garters. A Private Eye was Superman wearing a fedora.

The Amateur Detective was a private eye without a license. The people who came to the Am Eye were usually friends or relatives who never dreamed of going to the police with a criminal problem, but who couldn’t afford to pay a private detective for professional help. So, naturally, they went to an amateur. They called upon a rabbi or a priest or the lady who was president of the garden club, or somebody who owned cats, or a guy who drove a locomotive on the Delaware Lackawanna, and they explained that somebody was missing or dead, and could these busy amateurs please lend a helping hand? Naturally, the garage mechanic, or the magician, or the elevator operator dropped everything to go help his friend or his maiden aunt. The Am Eye was smarter than either the PI or the cops because solving crimes wasn’t his usual line of work, you see, but boy, was he good at it! It was fun writing Am Eye stories because you didn’t have to know anything about criminal investigation. You just had to know all the station stops on the Delaware Lackawanna.