The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (The Best American Series) [Paperback]

Otto Penzler (Editor), Scott Turow (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2006

"[Most of] these stories are portraits, in styles ranging from sly to harrowing, of how crimes occurred ... If you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you." -- from the introduction by Scott Turow

Best-selling author Scott Turow takes the helm for the tenth edition of this annual, featuring twenty-one of the past year's most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense.

Elmore Leonard tells the tale of a young woman who's fled home with a convicted bank robber. Walter Mosley describes an over-the-hill private detective and his new client, a woman named Karma. C. J. Box explores the fate of two Czech immigrants stranded by the side of the road in Yellowstone Park. Ed McBain begins his story on role-playing with the line "'Why don't we kill somebody?' she suggested." Wendy Hornsby tells of a wild motorcycle chase through the canyons outside Las Vegas. Laura Lippman describes the "Crack Cocaine Diet." And James Lee Burke writes of a young boy who may have been a close friend of Bugsy Siegel.

As Scott Turow notes in his introduction, these stories are "about crime -- its commission, its aftermath, its anxieties, its effect on character." The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 is a powerful collection for all readers who enjoy fiction that deals with the extremes of human passion and its dark consequences.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Quality writing from some of the biggest names in the genre marks the 10th collection in this series, though Turow concedes in the introduction that the 21 stories are more crime tales than mysteries. Walter Mosley contributes the collection's standout, "Karma," a classic noir exercise that brings the sweat and despair of the characters to life. Jeffery Deaver's "Born Bad" and Jane Haddam's "Edelweiss" are also solid entries, with nifty plot twists reminiscent of the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the short stories of Roald Dahl. A number of stories share the same hook, though, which lessens the impact, and the editor's omission of even one fair-play whodunit will disappoint some readers. Series editor Otto Penzler provides his usual cogent, candid foreword. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* "If you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you," writes guest editor Turow in the introduction to the latest installment in this superb series, now in its tenth year. Indeed, homicide rests at the icy heart of these 21 taut tales, set in locales ranging from small-town Indiana and the Texas Hill Country to an ominous rock canyon on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Mystery fans will welcome the diversity of voices here, from veterans Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Elmore Leonard, and the late Ed McBain ("Improvisation," the last short story he wrote, begins with the tantalizing line, "Why don't we kill somebody?") to lesser-known but no-less--impressive talents Alan Heathcock, Jeff Somers, and Mike MacLean. Among the best: Edgar winner Wendy Hornsby's "Dust Up," in which a fierce female wildlife conservationist overcomes a trio of Mob thugs, and novelist Andrew Klavan's mordant "Her Lord and Master," which serves up equal doses of sadomasochism and suspense. According to series editor Otto Penzler, the number of entries, culled from periodicals, literary journals, and e-zines, has increased nearly tenfold over the years (Penzler considered a "quaint" 500 in 1997). Copious contributors' notes reveal the fiendishly clever minds behind this criminal dim sum. A showcase series finishes its first decade on a resoundingly high note. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st edition (October 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618517472
• ISBN-13: 978-0618517473
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #916,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Heathcock's fiction has been published in many of America's top magazines and journals, including Zoetrope: All-Story, Kenyon Review,VQR, Five Chapters, Storyville, and The Harvard Review. His stories have won the National Magazine Award in fiction, and have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories anthology. VOLT, a collection of stories published by Graywolf Press, was a "Best Book 2011″ selection from numerous newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Publishers Weekly, Salon, the Chicago Tribune, and Cleveland Plain Dealer, was named as a New York Times Editors' Choice, selected as a Barnes and Noble Best Book of the Month, as well as for inclusion in the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers series. Heathcock has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and is currently a Literature Fellow for the state of Idaho. A Native of Chicago, he teaches fiction writing at Boise State University.

Advanced praise for VOLT:

"This is a big, ravishing, commanding story collection. Heathcock presents a riveting portrait of an imaginary town called Krafton: through its streets and farms and minds spin questions about civilization and wilderness, lawkeeping and lawlessness, faith and faithlessness. Each story in its way shows how we reverberate after tragedy, and how we try--and sometimes fail--to vibrate our way back toward equilibrium. VOLT is (dare I say it?) electrifying."
--Anthony Doerr, author of Memory Wall and The Shell Collector

"The stories in VOLT are intense, suspenseful, and utterly compelling. Heathcock writes about violence and bad luck and bad choices with a cool, grim eye that recalls Cormac McCarthy, yet he also approaches the hard lives of his stoic Westerners with great empathy and compassion and heart--a kind of miraculous combination. By turns hair-raising and tender, the tales in this collection draw you into a tough, bleak, beautiful world that you won't soon forget."
--Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply

"Alan Heathcock's VOLT is simply masterful. Its weave of stories is heart-filling and breath-stopping and his language achingly spare and yet, mysteriously generous, kind and luxurious. Take your time when you read it and then read it again."
--Robert Olmstead, author of Far Bright Star

"The stories in VOLT are rich in surprise moments of brightness and bleakness, told in strong straight sentences. Alan Heathcock has a cowpoke's eye for the bloom and detritus of the landscape, and language that puts one right there in the picture, banging through the greasewood, the cornfield, crossing the flats and sudden gullies. These are tough and potent stories, deeply felt and imagined. Heathcock is a writer who goes without flinching into the darker corners of human experience, but has the grace to bring any available light with him."
-Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone and Tomato Red

"Alan Heathcock doesn't so much write stories as fire them like bullets--they speed into the reader's consciousness and zip toward an impact that feels both stunning and irreversible. These are stories that arrive fast, hit hard, and linger."
--Keith Lee Morris, author of The Dart League King

"In the tradition of Breece D'J Pancake and Kent Meyers, Alan Heathcock turns his small town into a big canvas. Like the tales in Winesburg, Ohio, the stories in VOLT are full of violence and regret, and the sad desperation of the grotesque."
--Stewart O'Nan, author of Songs for the Missing

"VOLT is booming, cracking good. Heathcock's characters are trying to make things right, whether they're busting up a town, avenging the grief of a mother, or trying to live with the self-imposed judgement of loyalty or remorse. Guilt and grace are the pillars of this excellent collection, and there are no stronger or more mysterious pillars than those."
--Joy Williams, author of The Quick and the Dead and Taking Care

"Alan Heathcock's voice is the American voice, doing what it was meant to do. It's full of distance and wind, highways and heart. He's the real deal."
--Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Into the Beautiful North

"Alan Heathcock is an epic storyteller--and VOLT is an epic collection. You will come away from each of these majestic stories thrilled, alternately terrified and heartened, ultimately full of wonder at how the author manages to make twenty pages so timeless, so deep and sweeping--every story like a novel writ small."
--Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FIVE STARS * * * * *, October 29, 2006

By 

Avid Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

This is the tenth book in this series and I have loved every one of them. Unlike many anthologies, where some stories are good and others are weak, this hefty book is a treat because every story is first-rate. It is clear that the series editor, Otto Penzler, and the guest editor, Scott Turow, like literary fiction, much of which is somewhat noir. Good examples are "Karma" by Walter Mosley, "So Help Me God" by Joyce Carol Oates" and "Improvisation" by Ed McBain, which begins with a great opening line: "`Why don't we kill somebody?'" she suggested." I'd never heard of some of these authors before, like Karen Bender, Wendy Hornsby and R.T. Smith, but their stories are just as beautifully written as those by such famous writers as James Lee Burke, Jeffrey Deaver, Elmore Leonard and Laura Lippman. I wanted to stretch out the book and make it last a while, but I found the stories so enjoyable that I finished it in three nights. If you like great writing in your mystery stories, you'll love this book. *****FIVE STARS

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Stories Taken from The Best Anthologies, September 3, 2007

By 

James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (The Best American Series) (Paperback)

This collection is made up of Scott Turrow's selections of stories taken from many other great collections such as Dangerous Women, The Cocaine Chronicles and other leading anthologies. Being the case this means if you are into various author anthologies you more than likely have come across a few of these stories before but it also means most of these stories in here are good. Like any various author anthology stories do vary in quality and style from author to author. I have to admit I didn't enjoy every story within but there are certainly more than your usual number of literacy hits inside. The great collections not only allow you the pleasure of reading authors you already like but also introduce you to new ones as well which this one does over and over again.

Unfortunately for me I'd already read the great collection Dangerous Women before this so about a third of the stories inside here I had already read. Also because that collection was a fairly niche product being an anthology with strong female villains and other characters, the result is the 2006 edition of The Best American Mystery Stories also is very heavy with this factor. I recommend you get both books. If you want to read my reviews of those stories both in this and in Dangerous Women click on that book's link, I'll concentrate on the best of the stories within this collection not in that one.

Dust Up by Wendy Hornsby is my pick of the stories by authors not many people would have heard of before. Pansy is a raptor watcher who is witnessing the birth of an endangered eagle. Hit men out of Vegas murder a human then murder the mother of the endangered chick which Pansy is watching. Pansy is furious and will do whatever it takes to stop them killing the chick as well. She leads them on a great bike/car chase where she plans on getting her vengeance before returning to the Nevada canyon to help the bird.

I also thought it was great to finally read a story by C.J. Box that doesn't have park ranger Joe Pickett in it, not because I don't usually enjoy those, it's just that great authors are never tested until they can show they can write something different which is exactly what he did with Pirates of Yellowstone. This story is the tale of a couple of Czech guys on a working visa who have arrived in Yellowstone only to find their promised jobs were not kept by their employer. In exchange for board they help out a struggling mother in the meantime and decide that blackmail is their only way to prosper in America.

I thought Jane Haddam's story Edelweiss was also up there quality wise about the plot by two high school girls to murder their next door neighbour who babys her cat.

You can always rely on Laura Lippman to produce a great short story and I guess the only reason they didn't use the story she wrote in Dangerous Women was because the one she wrote in Cocaine Chronicles was even better. The Crack Cocaine Diet has a couple of superficial white teenagers venturing into the hood to buy some cocaine so they will lose weight and make the guys who dumped them look stupid in front of their friends at an upcoming party.

Since Amazon doesn't list the stories and authors on this webpage for some reason, I will do so for those interested.

Theft by Karen E Bender
Pirates of Yellowstone by C.J. Box
Why Bugsy Seal Was a Friend of Mine by James Lee Burke
Born Bad by Jefferey Deaver
Edelweiss by Jane Haddam
Texas heat by William Harrison
Peacekeeper by Alan Heathcock
A.K.A. Moses Rockefella by Emily Holmes II
Dust Up by Wendy Hornsby
Her Lord and Master by Andrew Klevan
Louly and Pretty Boy by Elmore Leonard
The Crack Cocaine Diet by Laura Lippman
Improvisation by Ed McBain
McHenry's Gift by Mike Maclean
Karma by Walter Mosley
So Help Me God by Joyce Carol Oates
Smile by Emily Roboteau
Ina Grove by R.T. Smith
Ringing the Changes by Jeff Somers
Vigilance by Scott Wolven

A great collection, excellent value for money!

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Winning Collection, October 8, 2006

By 

Daniel J. Seitler "shinybear" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (Hardcover)

Another great collection this year guest edited by Scott Turow along with the always great series editor Otto Penzler. Highlights include Joyce Carol Oates' "So Help Me God" and R.T. Smith's "Ina Grove" but all the stories are consistantly great. Easily the best mystery anthology of the year.