The Best American Mystery Stories 1998 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0395835860 ISBN 13: 9780395835869

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998

Synopsis

Presents a collection of mystery stories selected from magazines in the United States and Canada

About this title

About the Authors

Sue Grafton is published in 28 countries and 26 languages -- including Estonian, Bulgarian, and Indonesian. She's an international bestseller with a readership in the millions. She's a writer who believes in the form that she has chosen to mine: "The mystery novel offers a world in which justice is served. Maybe not in a court of law," she has said, "but people do get their just desserts." And like Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Robert Parker and the John D. MacDonald—the best of her breed—she has earned new respect for that form. Her readers appreciate her buoyant style, her eye for detail, her deft hand with character, her acute social observances, and her abundant storytelling talents. But who is the real Sue Grafton? Many of her readers think she is simply a version of her character and alter ego Kinsey Millhone. Here are Kinsey's own words in the early pages of N Is for Noose: "So there I was barreling down the highway in search of employment and not at all fussy about what kind of work I'd take. I wanted distraction. I wanted some money, escape, anything to keep my mind off the subject of Robert Deitz. I'm not good at good-byes. I've suffered way too many in my day and I don't like the sensation. On the other hand, I'm not that good at relationships. Get close to someone and the next thing you know, you've given them the power to wound, betray, irritate, abandon you, or bore you senseless. My general policy is to keep my distance, thus avoiding a lot of unruly emotion. In psychiatric circles, there are names for people like me." Those are sentiments that hit home for Grafton's readers. And she has said that Kinsey is herself, only younger, smarter, and thinner. But are they an apt description of Kinsey's creator? Well, she's been married to Steve Humphrey for more than twenty years. She has three kids and two grandkids. She loves cats, gardens, and good cuisine—not quite the nature-hating, fast-food loving Millhone. So: readers and reviewers beware. Never assume the author is the character in the book. Sue, who has a home in Montecito, California ("Santa Theresa") and another in Louisville, the city in which she was born and raised, is only in her imagination Kinsey Millhone -- but what a splendid imagination it is.

Otto Penzler is the founder of the Mysterious Bookshops and the Mysterious Press and an Edgar Award winner. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

paper 0-395-83585-2 Series editor Otto Penzler, who picked the 50 stories from which Grafton culled the 20 in this volume, has ranged far afield in search of what Grafton aptly calls crime stories, and the rewards are substantial. Scott Bartelss matter-of-fact heroin idyll first appeared in Tamaqua, Merrill Joan Gerber's tale of an ominously pesky fellow-alumnus in Chattahoochee Review, Steve Yarbrough's sorrowful rural reminiscence in Missouri Review, Dave Shaws droll confession of a chronic slip-and-fall artist in South Dakota Review, Joyce Carol Oatess tormented memoir of a faithless mother in Kenyon Review. Of the entries from more expected sources, the standouts are Stuart Kaminskys unexpectedly bleak quest for a missing wife, Peter Robinsons deceptively mellowed portrait of two old ladies sharing a cottage, and first-timer David Ballards remarkably assured spin on Roald Dahls classic Man from the Southas well as stories by Lawrence Block, John Lutz, and Donald E. Westlake that can also be found in Ed Gorman's rival The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories (p. 1240). Not the comprehensive yearbook of the genre Gorman produces, but this year, at least, a more rewarding collection of stories. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0395835860
• ISBN 13: 9780395835869
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 345
• Editor: Grafton Sue