Styuart Kaminski - The Best American Mystery Stories 1998

Child Support by David Ballard. First published in New Mystery, Vol. V, number 2, Fall 1997. Copyright 1997 by David Ballard. Reprinted by permission of Charles Raisch.

Swear Not by the Moon by Scott Bartels. First published in Tamaqua, Vol. VI, Issue II, Fall 1997 (Parkland College, Champaign, Illinois). Copyright 1997 by Scott Bartels. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Keller on the Spot by Lawrence Block. First published in Playboy, Nov. 1997. Copyright 1997 by Lawrence Block. Reprinted by permission of Knox Burger Associates, Ltd.

The Man Next Door by Mary Higgins Clark. First published in The Plot Thickens (Pocket Books, Nov. 1997). Copyright 1997 by Mary Higgins Clark. Reprinted by permission of the author.

This Is a Voice from Your Past by Merrill Joan Gerber. First published in The Chattahoochee Review, Vol. XVII, number 4, Summer 1997. Copyright 1997 by Merrill Joan Gerber. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Old Spies Club by Edward D. Hoch. First published in Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine, May 1997. Copyright 1997 by Edward D. Hoch. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Beyond Dog by Pat Jordan. First published in Playboy, August 1997. Copyright 1997 by Pat Jordan. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Find Miriam by Stuart Kaminsky. First published in New Mystery, Volume V, number 1, Summer 1997. Copyright 1997 by Stuart Kaminsky. Reprinted by permission of Charles Raisch.

Secrets by Janice Law. First published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine,July/August 1997. Copyright 1997 by Janice Law Trecker. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Adventure of the Giant Rat of Sumatra by John T. Lescroart. First published in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Summer/Fall 1997. Copyright 1997 by Lescroart Corporation. Reprinted by permission of Lescroart Corporation.

Night Crawlers by John Lutz. First published in Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine, April 1997. Copyright 1997 by John Lutz. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Prayer for Judgment by Margaret Maron. First published in Shoveling Smoke: Selected Mystery Stories by Margaret Maron (Crippen & Landru Publishers, 1997). Copyright 1997 by Margaret Maron. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Con Doctor by Jay Mclnerney. First published in Playboy, Jan. 1997. Copyright 1997 by Bright Lights Big City, Inc. Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc.

Black Dog by Walter Mosley. First published in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, (W.W. Norton, 1997). Copyright 1997 by Walter Mosley. Reprinted by permission of the author and W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Faithless by Joyce Carol Oates. First published in Kenyon Review, Winter 1997. Copyright 1997 by The Ontario Review, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Two Ladies of Rose Cottage by Peter Robinson. First published in Malice Domestic 6 (Pocket Books, 1997). Copyright 1997 by Peter Robinson. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Twelve Days Out of Traction by Dave Shaw. First published in South Dakota Review, Vol. 34, number 4, Winter 1996, published in February 1997. Copyright 1997 by Dave Shaw. Reprinted by permission of the author.

The Power of Suggestion by Helen Tucker. First published in Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine, May 1997. Copyright 1997 by Helen Tucker. Reprinted by permission of McIntosh and Otis, Inc.

Take It Away by Donald E. Westlake. First published in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Summer/Fall 1997. Copyright 1997 by Donald E. Westlake. Reprinted by permission of Knox Burger Associates, Ltd.

The Rest of Her Life by Steve Yarbrough. First published in The Missouri Review, Dec. 1997, Vol. 20, number 3. Copyright 1997 by Steve Yarbrough. Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc.

For just how many years have we heard the publishing axiom that short story collections dont sell? When I was too young, too naive, to know this truth, I filled shelf after shelf with short story collections, unaware of my deviant behavior for engaging in this apparently unusual, if not outright bizarre, act.

Having continued down this awkwardly antisocial path for more years than it would be polite for anyone to enumerate to me, I am now struck by the fact that I have never had difficulty finding enough excellent collections (the work of a single author) and even more anthologies (stories by a variety of contributors) to satisfy my unending thirst. Can there be such generosity, such out-and-out charity, on the part of publishing houses to continue to publish these money-losing projects? If we are reading the same newspapers and magazines, with their endless lamentations about the strangulation of publishing houses by their new leaders, all accountants and lawyers still awaiting their first actual reading experience, that seems unlikely. Or could it be? short stories do sell.

When I consider the number of periodicals, anthologies, and collections I read to accumulate the best stories of the year, I cannot help but be cheered by the many markets open to short story writers. Nothing like the golden age before television, of course, but enough to ensure that any worthwhile piece of fiction will find a home.

While there are too few magazines specializing exclusively in the type of fiction contained in this volume, there are many mainstream consumer publications that use some mystery fiction, just as there are many small literary magazines that might be a trifle too blue-blooded ever to consider a mere mystery story but are happy to feature a tale of passion, fear, violence, suspense, or revenge that results in murder or its attempt or its aftermath. Finally, recent years have seen a dramatic increase in anthologies of original mystery fiction. Adding it all up, we counted nearly six hundred mystery-crime-suspense stories published in the calendar year 1997.

It has always been my practice to define mystery fiction broadly as any story in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or plot. This definition opens the door to much that is not structured as a classic detective story.

In the United States, the professional organization of authors who produce this type of fiction is called the Mystery Writers of America. Its English counterpart is the Crime Writers Association. The members of both organizations are writers of mysteries, or stories essentially told from the point of view of the detective in which an attempt is made to discover who committed a crime or, more often nowadays, why the crime was committed. Both also count among their members writers of crime fiction, which is largely told from the point of view of the criminal: we see the crime committed, generally understand why it has been done, and then wait to discover how or why it all unravels.

As Sue Grafton points out in her introduction, there seems to be a preponderance of crime stories in this volume. It has, it seems to me, become more and more difficult for detective story writers to find new motives, or new clues, with which to fool readers. Agatha Christie consumed more than her share of original plot notions, leaving a pretty skimpy carcass for those who followed. On the whole, there seems a wider range of opportunity in the areas of suspense and crime than in the tightly plotted story of observation and deduction, so it cannot be a surprise that the output of contemporary authors reflects that shift of direction.

As is the custom in the Houghton Mifflin series of distinguished anthologies, the series editor (in this case, me) does the preliminary reading and passes along the best fifty stories to the guest editor (in this case, Sue Grafton), who selects the twenty stories to be published, with the remaining thirty listed in an honor roll at the end of the volume. To further enhance the reading experience, each author is invited to provide notes about his or her story and its genesis or other pertinent anecdotal material.