Chris Adrian - The Best American Mystery Stories 2007

John Sandfordis the pen name of John Camp, a former journalist who is the author of twenty-three best-selling thriller novels and two nonfiction books, one on art and the other on plastic surgery. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. Long interested in history and archaeology, he is the primary backer of the Tel Rehov archaeological dig in Israel (rehov.org) and is a member of the board of directors of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He lives near St. Paul. Minnesota.

• In the writing of thrillers, there are two opposing worldviews: one that sees crime as the result of conspiratorial thinking, in which the hero destroys a clockwork process set up by the forces of evil; and one that sees a world of chaos, greed, lust, mistake, prejudice, stupidity, and impulse, in which the hero struggles to restore order and some sense of justice. I belong to the latter school, the product of having grown up covering crime in large metropolitan areas. Evil is in the small stuff: somebody tries to steal $50, or somebody wants somebody else’s spouse, and somebody gets killed; and that event sets off a chain reaction. I also tend to see cops as workaday guys who hustle on a murder eight hours a day, and then punch out and go home, eat a cheeseburger, watch the game on TV, chase the old lady around the bedroom, and don’t get all angst-up about the job. But that’s just me.

Brent Spenceris the author of a novel, The Last Son, and a collection of short stories, Are We Not Men? , chosen by the editors of the Village Voice Literary Supplement as one of the twenty-five best books of the year. His short fiction has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the American Literary Review, Epoch, the Missouri Review, GQ and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing at Creighton University and is at work on a new novel.

• I had spent several weeks along the U.S.-Mexico border, trying to unravel the mystery of my father’s life and death, when I came upon one of the sites of the ill-fated Somervell and Mier expeditions, among the most notorious incidents of the Texas Revolution. Maybe it was frustration over my own expedition that drew me to the subject. The more I looked into it, the more I wanted to know. The story contained everything — from political intrigue to bravery to foolhardiness and racism. In the end I decided to write a short story that I hoped would embody the whole complex of ideas and incidents by focusing on the life of one unwilling foot soldier whose life is changed forever by what he witnesses and by his attempt to put it right. The story I wrote was so unlike anything else I had ever written that I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. All I knew was that it was a story I had to tell.

Scott Wolvenis the author of Controlled Burn (Scribner). Six years in a row, Wolven’s stories have been selected to appear in The Best American Mystery Stories series.

• “Pinwheel” started as a conversation with Otto Penzler — “What do you know about horseracing?” Otto said. My brother is a terrific artist and showed me a painting he had done of two Japanese carp with the words STAY TRUE written in shaded graphics between the two fish; his painting provided a lot of fuel for this story. The yakuza, the honorable outlaws, added a huge moving shadow. Maybe that’s part of the job of fiction — to arrest those various shadows for the reader.

It’s an honor to have my story appear in this volume. Special thanks to Cort McMeel and Mug Shot Press; Nick Mullendore and the very gracious Loretta Barrett of Loretta Barrett Books. Anthony Neil Smith, Victor Gischler, and Charlie Stella — Crimedogs never fail. Go Chelsea FC. Very special thanks to DW for Rummy, M, T&K, WSBW, and a big HBK thank-you to best brother Will.