Summary

"[Most of] these stories are portraits, in styles ranging from sly to harrowing, of how crimes occurred ... If you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you." -- from the introduction by Scott Turow Best-selling author Scott Turow takes the helm for the tenth edition of this annual, featuring twenty-one of the past year's most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense. Elmore Leonard tells the tale of a young woman who's fled home with a convicted bank robber. Walter Mosley describes an over-the-hill private detective and his new client, a woman named Karma. C. J. Box explores the fate of two Czech immigrants stranded by the side of the road in Yellowstone Park. Ed McBain begins his story on role-playing with the line "'Why don't we kill somebody?' she suggested." Wendy Hornsby tells of a wild motorcycle chase through the canyons outside Las Vegas. Laura Lippman describes the "Crack Cocaine Diet." And James Lee Burke writes of a young boy who may have been a close friend of Bugsy Siegel. As Scott Turow notes in his introduction, these stories are "about crime -- its commission, its aftermath, its anxieties, its effect on character." The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 is a powerful collection for all readers who enjoy fiction that deals with the extremes of human passion and its dark consequences.

Foreword

Introduction

xiv

Scott Turow

Theft

(17)

Karen E. Bender

Pirates of Yellowstone

(13)

C. J. Box

Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine

(14)

James Lee Burke

Born Bad

(18)

Jeffery Deaver

Edelweiss

(18)

Jane Haddam

Texas Heat

(12)

William Harrison

Peacekeeper

(19)

Alan Heathcock

A.k.a., Moises Rockafella

112

(17)

Emory Holmes II

Dust Up

129

(15)

Wendy Hornsby

Her Lord and Master

144

(10)

Andrew Klavan

Louly and Pretty Boy

154

(15)

Elmore Leonard

The Crack Cocaine Diet (Or: How to Lose a Lot of Weight and Change Your Life in Just One Weekend)

169

(11)

Laura Lippman

Improvisation

180

(17)

Ed McBain

McHenry's Gift

197

(8)

Mike Maclean

Karma

205

(35)

Walter Mosley

So Help Me God

240

(26)

Joyce Carol Oates

A Temporary Crown

266

(12)

Sue Pike

Smile

278

(3)

Emily Raboteau

Ina Grove

281

(28)

R. T. Smith

Ringing the Changes

309

(11)

Jeff Somers

Vigilance

320

(25)

Scott Wolven

Contributors' Notes

345

(11)

Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2005

356

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

Introduction First, a confession. I have little business being the guest editor of this volume. Although I have always read short stories of every kind with appreciation, I seldom write them. My rate of story production can be measured on a geologic scale, about one every decade. Looking at my predecessors in this role, I would describe all of them as distinguished practitioners of the form. Not so here. In other words, the opinions expressed are not seasoned by an insider's experience. But as is so often true with lawyers, a lack of qualifications will not keep me from speaking. Let me start, then, by reflecting on the traditional title of this series, Best American Mystery Stories. To be sure, some of the stories that appear here, like Walter Mosley's "Karma," are elegant small mysteries, if mystery is taken to have its traditional meaning as a story about the investigation of a puzzling crime. Characteristically, mysteries focus on the detection of the crime's perpetrator, or more broadly, discovering (or revealing) why that enigmatic crime occurred. Andrew Klavan's "Her Lord and Master" is a mystery in that second sense. But many other stories included here never raise those questions. Instead, what the fictions Otto Penzler and I have chosen hold in common is their subject matter. Every one is about crime - its commission, its aftermath, its anxieties, its effect on character. Best American Crime Stories would be equally, if not more, apropos as the title of this book. In fact, more than any other theme, these stories are portraits, in styles ranging from sly to harrowing, of how crimes occurred - the evolution of circumstances so that bad-acting becomes inevitable. "Vigilance" by Scott Wolven or "Ringing the Changes" by Jeff Somers are only two of many possible examples, both gritty and compelling. In fact, more than half the stories here culminate in the commission of one particular offense. So as not to spoil things, I will not name the crime, but let me say if you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you. Yet, I would venture that crime is not the only point of intersection between these stories. If you were to compare most of them to those in the companion volume, Best American Short Stories, you might feel, more often than not, that they somehow seem different. Despite what some critics contend, the distinction is not in elegance of execution - many of these stories, such as R. T. Smith's "Ina Grove," are technically masterful; nor in the depth of psychological insight - Alan Heathcock's "Peacekeeper" is a moving revelation of the interdependence of an individual and a community; nor in the uniqueness of voice or vision. There are few American stylists as distinctive as Elmore Leonard, whose usual roadside magic is displayed in "Louly and Pretty Boy Floyd." The difference is that the majority of these stories proceed on different assumptions about what a short story is supposed to do when compared to what I'd call "mainstream" contemporary stories that might be taught in a literature class. If we are seeking the literary heritage of the majority of these stories, we must hark back to the nineteenth century and the quintessential form that was perfected by writers like Hawthorne and Poe in the United States and Guy de Maupassant in France (and sublimely mastered by Chekhov). The classic short story arose as a function of rapid increases in literacy and the far broader circulation that resulted from newspapers and magazines that were, in today's terms, hungry for content. Stories in that era evolved