The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0881849030 ISBN 13: 9780881849035

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 1992

Synopsis

An anthology of mystery and crime stories features the work of Ruth Rendell, Sue Grafton, Faye Kellerman, Marcia Muller, Robert Bernard, Sara Paretsky, Charlotte McLeod, Nancy Pickford, Bill Pronzini, and Lawrence Block.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Talk about instant classics! Virtually all the stories (23 of 25) assembled in this bargain-priced, albeit indiscriminate, collection have had earlier hardcover incarnations, and several of them have already been reprinted in earlier anthologies or in Mystery Scene's principal rival, Edward D. Hoch's annual roundup (p. 1026); so if the top-flight selections by Lawrence Block, Ruth Rendell, Doug Allyn, Julian Rathbone, and Tony Hillerman sound familiar, they probably are. The centerpiece here is Marcia Muller's novella ``The Wall''--a workmanlike job, but no classic, though it's introduced with the same hyperbolic praise lavished on its companions by Margaret Maron, Carole Nelson Douglas, Gillian Roberts, Joseph Hansen, Jonathan Gash, Robert Bloch, et al. But the standout among the general high competence is ``Spin-A-Rama,'' Jeremiah Healy's dirty little tale of political chicanery, the one story that could well turn up in an anthology 20 years from now. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Using a liberal definition of the genre and embracing a wide range of narrative styles, the editors have assembled an impressive array of talent in this first annual collection of the year's best short crime fiction. Joe R. Lansdale skirts the edges of the horror story with his "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road," in which a troubled woman stumbles into a killer's lair and uncovers a neat solution to her own problem. Joan Hess pursues unexpected psychological angles as she follows an apartment dweller through the strange new addition to her tiny domicile in "Another Room." British writer Peter Lovesey pens "The Valuation," a droll tale about a pushy real estate agent who sells a timid woman's home out from under her, or so he imagines. Varying from Bill Pronzini's retro style to the darkly urban view of Andrew Vachss and the downright coziness of Charlotte MacLeod, the quality of storytelling here remains a pleasing constant.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0881849030
• ISBN 13: 9780881849035
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 343
• Editor: Mystery Scene