Рон Рэш - The Best American Mystery Stories 2019

“Coach O” by Robert Hinderliter. First published in New Ohio Review, no. 24. Copyright © 2018 by Robert Hinderliter. Reprinted by permission of Robert Hinderliter.

“The Keepers of All Sins” by Sharon Hunt. First published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, November/December 2018. Copyright © 2018 by Sharon Hunt. Reprinted by permission of Sharon Hunt.

“Open House” by Reed Johnson. First published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November/December 2018. Copyright © 2018 by Reed Johnson. Reprinted by permission of Reed Johnson.

“A Damn Fine Town” by Arthur Klepchukov. First published in Down & Out: The Magazine, vol. 1, no. 4. Copyright © 2018 by Arthur Klepchukov. Reprinted by permission of Arthur Klepchukov.

“The Walk-In” by Harley Jane Kozak. First published in For the Sake of the Game. Copyright © 2018 by Harley Jane Kozak. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Top Ten Vacation Selfies of YouTube Stars” by Preston Lang. First published in Deadlines: A Tribute to William E. Wallace. Copyright © 2018 by Preston Lang. Reprinted by permission of Preston Lang.

“Mastermind” by Jared Lipof. First published in Salamander, no. 45. Copyright © 2018 by Jared Lipof. Reprinted by permission of Jared Lipof.

“That Donnelly Crowd” by Anne Therese Macdonald. First published in False Faces: Twenty Stories About the Masks We Wear. Copyright © 2018 by Anne Therese Macdonald. Reprinted by permission of Anne Therese Macdonald.

“The Clown” by Mark Mayer. First published in American Short Fiction, vol. 21, no. 67, Summer 2018. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Mayer. Reprinted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.

“Interpreting American Gothic ” by Rebecca McKanna. First published in Colorado Review, Summer 2018. Copyright © 2018 by Rebecca McKanna. Reprinted by permission of Rebecca McKanna.

“Hannah-Beast” by Jennifer McMahon. First published in Dark Corners/Amazon Original Stories. Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer McMahon. Reprinted by permission of Writers House LLC.

“The Archivist” by Joyce Carol Oates. First published in Boulevard, nos. 98 & 99. Copyright © 2018 by The Ontario Review, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“A Box of Hope” by Brian Panowich. First published in One Story, no. 244. Copyright © 2018 by Brian Panowich. Reprinted by permission of Brian Panowich.

“Payback” by Tonya D. Price. First published in Fiction River: Hard Choices. Copyright © 2018 by Tonya D. Price. Reprinted by permission of Tonya D. Price.

“If You Say So” by Suzanne Proulx. First published in False Faces: Twenty Stories About the Masks We Wear. Copyright © 2018 by Suzanne Proulx. Reprinted by permission of Suzanne Proulx.

“Neighbors” by Ron Rash. First published in Epoch, vol. 67, no. 1. Copyright © 2018 by Ron Rash. Reprinted by permission of Ron Rash.

“Faint of Heart” by Amanda Rea. First published in One Story, no. 237. Copyright © 2018 by Amanda Rea. Reprinted by permission of Amanda Rea.

“Lush” by Duane Swierczynski. First published in Blood Work: Remembering Gary Shulze Once Upon a Crime, edited by Rick Ollerman. Copyright © 2018 by Duane Swierczynski. Reprinted by permission of Duane Swierczynski.

“Inside Man” by Robb T. White. First published in Down & Out: The Magazine, vol. 1, no. 4. Copyright © 2018 by Robert T. White. Reprinted by permission of Robert T. White.

“Burning Down the House” by Ted White. First published in Welcome to Dystopia: 45 Visions of What Lies Ahead. Copyright © 2018 by Ted White. Reprinted by permission of Ted White.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose. For The Best American Mystery Stories series, it’s true: the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

When the series began in 1997, the guest editor was Robert B. Parker. I was the series editor. This year the guest editor is Jonathan Lethem. I’m still the series editor.

The mission back then was to try to read every mystery story published by an American or Canadian in 1996, and more than five hundred stories were examined in order to find the twenty best. For this edition, the mission remained precisely the same — but more than three thousand stories were examined.

A primary source for great crime fiction was the specialty magazines ( Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine ), a handful of mystery anthologies, literary journals, and popular consumer magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Today those publications are still a treasure trove of stories suitable for being collected in The Best American Mystery Stories , but other mystery magazines have been created (notably The Strand and the rebirth of Black Mask ), the modest number of anthologies has mushroomed into scores, mostly from small publishers, and electronic magazines (e-zines), of which I was unaware in 1996, have drawn some highly talented authors to their sites.

The look of the books in this series remains largely unchanged twenty-three years later, but the hardcover editions have been abandoned to be replaced with electronic editions. Additionally, the original publisher was Houghton Mifflin and, after a merger, it is now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. You (and I) would barely notice the difference in the books, because there is none.

Are these changes good or bad? Both, but mostly good. I lament the passing of the great Dr. Parker, as well as the loss of the next three guest editors: Sue Grafton, Evan Hunter (Ed McBain), and Donald E. Westlake. (Thankfully, the others appear to be in good health, still writing their popular and acclaimed books.) Examining literally thousands of stories is a huge challenge for Michele Slung, my invaluable colleague, who did all the preliminary reading then and still does; without her, this series could not exist, as I am such a slow reader that I practically move my lips when I read. The disappointment is that so many e-zines do not produce fully edited stories, some of which have unrealized potential.

There is, however, lots of good news, not least of which is that the distinguished publishing house of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt continues the series and supports it with outstanding attention to detail (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a typo, to mention one element) and keeps most of the backlist in print.

The expanding numbers of small independent publishers can only be seen as a good thing. The optimism of starting a new business, particularly in an area that has minuscule profit margins, must be applauded.

Although the percentage of people in America who read books for pleasure remains below 50, more independent bookshops have opened than closed for six consecutive years, which warms the heart.

Enough! Time to get down to the reason you purchased this book. As seems to be true on an annual basis, this is a superb collection of original fiction about extremes of human behavior caused by despair, hate, greed, fear, envy, insanity, or love — sometimes in combination. Desperate people may be prone to desperate acts, a fertile ground for poor choices. Many of the authors in this cornucopia of crime have described how aberrant solutions to difficult situations may occur, and why perpetrators felt that their violent responses to conflicts seemed appropriate to them.

The psychology of crime has become the dominant form of mystery fiction in recent years, while the classic tale of observation and deduction has faded further into the background. Those tales of pure detection may be the most difficult mystery stories to write, as it has become increasingly difficult to find original motivations for murder, or a new murder method, or an original way to hide a vital clue until the detective unearths it. The working definition of a mystery story for this series is any work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or the plot. The detective story is merely one subgenre in the literary form known as the mystery, just as are romantic suspense, espionage, legal legerdemain, medical thriller, political duplicity, and stories told from the point of view of the villain.