The Best American Mystery Stories 2001

by Block, Lawrence

• ISBN13: 9780618124923
• ISBN10: 0618124926
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads hundreds of pieces from dozens of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2001 will thrill fans of all reaches of the genre. The legendary mystery writer Lawrence Block offers chilling tales from best-selling writers as well as talented up-and-comers. Ranging from traditional detective cases to psychological studies to atmospheric scene-setters, these stories illustrate the variety and broad range of styles, plots, and characters Block admires in the genre. With Block as guest editor and a stellar roster of suspense veterans and rising stars, the 2001 edition will delight mystery afcionados and all lovers of great fiction.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Introduction	xiii
Lawrence Block
Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster	1	(24)
Jennifer Anderson
Lobster Night	25	(18)
Russell Banks
Prison Food	43	(18)
Michael Downs
In the Zone	61	(14)
Leslie Edgerton
The Paperhanger	75	(16)
William Gay
A Book of Kells	91	(20)
Jeremiah Healy
Erie's Last Day	111	(22)
Steve Hockensmith
Under Suspicion	133	(24)
Clark Howard
Her Hollywood	157	(12)
Michael Hyde
Family	169	(13)
Dan Leone
Blood Sport	182	(11)
Thomas Lynch
Carnie	193	(9)
David Means
Tides	202	(26)
Kent Nelson
The Girl with the Blackened Eye	228	(11)
Joyce Carol Oates
Easy Street	239	(32)
Jefferson Parker
The Big Bite	271	(14)
Bill Pronzini
Missing in Action	285	(20)
Peter Robinson
The Face-Lift	305	(13)
Roxana Robinson
Big Ranch	318	(9)
John Salter
Push Comes to Shove	327	(10)
Nathan Walpow
Contributors' Notes	337	(10)
Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2000	347

Excerpts

IntroductionThe american mystery short story, it is my pleasant duty to report, is in very good shape. Were you to skip this introduction and go directly to the stories themselves, youd discover as much on your own. And, I must say, every impulse but that of ego leads me to urge you to do just that. The stories, to be sure, are why were all here. They are the best of this years crop, and the crop itself was a bountiful one. And they were written, each and every one of them, for love -- love of the ideas that propel them, love of the characters that inhabit them, love of the pure task of dreaming imaginary worlds and putting well-chosen words on paper (or the screen, or what you will). This introduction, on the other hand, was written for money. Its part of my job as guest editor, which consists primarily of reading the years fifty best stories as selected by Otto Penzler with the assistance of Michele Slung and choosing twenty of that number for this volume. Having performed that happy task, Im further required to string together a hundred sentences with the aim of producing something that will serve to introduce twenty fine stories, which, truth to tell, need no introduction. My words, however, will help to justify the presence of my name on the books cover, and will also help me earn my fee. Should I apologize for my mercenary motive? I think not. I am guided, after all, by Samuel Johnsons immortal words: "No man but a blockhead wrote but for money." * Would the good Dr. Johnsons words echo so resoundingly in my soul, I have often wondered, had he picked some other word? A dimwit, say, or a palpable ass, or a clod or a clown or a numbskull? "No man but a witling, sir, wrote but for money." It has, I submit, every bit as good a ring to it, and it leaves my own innocent surname well out of it. Ah, well. It has always seemed to me that the precise meaning of Johnsons utterance is subject to interpretation. Perhaps he is saying that the person who writes in the happy anticipation of anything beyond financial reward is playing the fool. If you expect to make a name for yourself, or achieve literary immortality, or change the world, or pile up brownie points in heaven, then surely youre a blockhead -- because moneys all you can truly hope to gain for your efforts. Because, certainly, Johnson himself was nowhere near as mercenary as the quoted sentence makes him appear. He wrote for money, unquestionably, and he might well have stopped writing had they stopped paying him, but he wrote also with the clear intent of adding to the worlds store of knowledge and enhancing English literature. Indeed, his dictum works every bit as well, and sounds just as likely to have been uttered by him, if we take it and turn it on its head, to wit: "No man but a blockhead wrote solely for money." And who can argue with that? There are easier ways to make a living -- almost all of them, come to think of it -- and few less likely ways to am

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