Dzheffri Diver - The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

Justice by Pamela Blackwood. First published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, January/February 2019. Copyright 2019 by Pamela Blackwood. Reprinted by permission of Pamela Blackwood.

Home Movie by Jerry M. Burger. First published in The Briar Cliff Review, Spring 2019. Copyright 2019 by Jerry M. Burger. Reprinted by permission of Jerry M. Burger.

Deportees by James Lee Burke. First published in The Strand Magazine, October to January 2019/2020. Copyright 2019 by James Lee Burke. Reprinted by permission of James Lee Burke.

Second Cousins by Michael Cebula. First published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September/October 2019. Copyright 2019 by Michael Cebula. Reprinted by permission of Michael Cebula.

The Surrogate Initiative by Brian Cox. First published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, September/October 2019. Copyright 2019 by Brian Fox. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Shanty Falls by Doug Crandell. First published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January/February 2019. Copyright 2019 by Doug Crandell. Reprinted by permission of Doug Crandell.

The Duelist by David Dean. First published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May/June 2019. Copyright 2019 by David Dean. Reprinted by permission of David Dean.

Security by Jeffery Deaver. First published in Odd Partners, edited by Anne Perry, Mystery Writers of America Press. Copyright 2019 by Jeffery Deaver. Reprinted by permission of Jeffery Deaver.

Rhonda and Clyde by John M. Floyd. First published in Black Cat Mystery Magazine, November 2019, Wildside Press. Copyright 2019 by John M. Floyd. Reprinted by permission of John M. Floyd.

On Little Terry Road by Tom Franklin. First published in From Sea to Stormy Sea, edited by Lawrence Block. Copyright 2019 by Tom Franklin. Reprinted by permission of Tom Franklin.

See Humble and Die by Richard Helms. First published in The Eyes of Texas, edited by Michael Bracken, Down & Out Books, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Richard Helms. Reprinted by permission of Richard Helms.

All This Distant Beauty by Ryan David Jahn. First published in Mystery Tribune #8, Winter 2019. Copyright 2019 by Ryan David Jahn. Reprinted by permission of Ryan David Jahn.

Miss Martin by Sheila Kohler. First published in Cutting Edge, edited by Joyce Carol Oates, Akashic Press, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Sheila Kohler. Reprinted by permission of Sheila Kohler.

The Most Powerful Weapon by Jake Lithua. First published in The Odds Are Against Us, edited by Oren Litwin, Liberty Island. Copyright 2019 by Oren Litwin. Reprinted by permission of Oren Litwin.

Baddest Outlaws by Rick McMahan. First published in After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, edited by Phoef Sutton. Copyright 2019 by Richard A. McMahan. Reprinted by permission of Richard A. McMahan.

What Ever Happened to Lorna Winters? by Lisa Morton. First published in Odd Partners, edited by Anne Perry, Mystery Writers of America Press. Copyright 2019 by Lisa Morton. Reprinted by permission of Lisa Morton.

Girl with an Ax by John Sandford. First published in From Sea to Stormy Sea, edited by Lawrence Block. Copyright 2019 by John Sandford. Reprinted by permission of John Sandford.

Pretzel Logic by dbschlosser. First published in Die Behind the Wheel: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Steely Dan, edited by Brian Thornton, Down & Out Books, 2019. Copyright 2019 by dbschlosser. Reprinted by permission of dbschlosser.

Nightbound by Wallace Stroby. First published in At Home in the Dark, edited by Lawrence Block, Subterranean Press, 2019. Copyright 2019 by Wallace Stroby. Reprinted by permission of Wallace Stroby.

The Last Hit by Robin Yocum. First published in The Strand Magazine, July to November 2019. Copyright 2019 by Robin Yocum. Reprinted by permission of Robin Yocum.

Another year, another edition of The Best American Mystery Stories. Just as each year presents surprises and memorable moments, so does each volume in this prestigious series. It has been my privilege to be the series editor for all twenty-four annual volumes of these monuments to excellence in the realm of the mystery short story.

Writing a good mystery story is no small thing. Many of the novelists Ive worked with over the years have claimed that its harder to produce a good short story, where every word must count so heavily, than to have the expansive luxury of telling the story over scores of thousands of words.

John Dickson Carr, the greatest writer of impossible crime stories who ever concocted a locked-room puzzle, claimed that the natural form of the traditional mystery is not the novel but the short story. It is not uncommon, he pointed out, for a detective story to revolve around a single incident, with a single clue, which can be discovered, divulged, and have its significance explained within a few pages. The rest is embellishment.

While it is redundant for me to write it again, since I have already done so in each of the previous twenty-three volumes of this series, it falls into the category of fair warning to state that many people regard a mystery as a detective story. I regard the detective story as one subgenre of a much more inclusive literary form, which I define as any short work of fiction in which a crime (usually murder, as the stakes are highest when a human life is being taken), or the threat of a crime (creating suspense), is central to the theme or the plot.

While I love good puzzles and tales of pure ratiocination, few of these are written today, as the mystery genre has evolved (for better or worse, depending on your point of view) into a more character-driven form of literature, with more emphasis on the why of a crimes commission than the who or the how. The line between mystery fiction and general fiction has become more and more blurred in recent years, producing fewer memorable traditional detective stories but more significant literature.

As is true every year, I could not have perused the 1,5002,000 mystery stories that were published and examined last year, and much of the heavy lifting was done by my invaluable colleague, the longtime editor Michele Slung. She is able to read, evaluate, and commit to seemingly lifelong memory a staggering percentage of those stories, culling those that clearly do not belong on a short list or a long one either, for that matter. She examines twice as many stories as that to determine if they have mystery or criminal content, which is frequently impossible to know merely by reading the title.

The same standards have pertained to every one of the volumes in this important series. The best writing makes it into the book. Fame, friendship, original venue, reputation, subject none of it matters. It isnt only the qualification of being the best writer that will earn a spot on the table of contents; it also must be the best story.

After Michele has gathered the stories to be seriously considered, I read the harvested crop, passing along the best fifty (or at least those I liked best, which I like to think is the same thing) to the guest editor, who selects the twenty that are then reprinted, with the other thirty being listed in an honor roll as Other Distinguished Mystery Stories.

Sincere thanks are due to this years guest editor, C. J. Box, the number-one New York Times bestselling author of twenty-seven novels, including the Joe Pickett series. He has won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as an Anthony, a Macavity, a Gumshoe, two Barrys, and the 2010 Reading the West Book Award for fiction. His novels have been translated into thirty languages, and over 10 million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad.