Edited by SA Cosby and Steph Cha — This annual compilation of short stories by leading American crime authors has evolved quite a bit since Steph Cha took over the editorship from Otto Penzler, who now publishes The Best Mystery Stories of the Year as a rival. Many thought Penzler’s long-running series needed a refresh, with more diverse perspectives and to include stories addressing more contemporary themes. Truthfully, the number of magazines devoted to crime fiction as well as the literary magazines, anthologies and special collections that publish occasional stories in this genre, means that no matter what selection criteria editors adopt, they are likely to have a wealth of excellent stories to choose from. Guest editor SA Cosby and Steph Cha have made some excellent picks, with something for every crime fiction fan.
In my not disinterested opinion, the pre-Cha era sadly neglected female writers, and since her tenure that issue has been well addressed, along with stories from more diverse authors and themes. In the 2024 edition, two-thirds of the stories are by women authors, compared to one-third in Penzler’s latest collection.
Contemporary problems – toxic phone apps, violent street protests, incriminating blog posts – are here and have a story-behind-the-headlines feel to them. Several have adopted innovative or atypical presentation styles. I particularly liked For I Hungered, and Ye Gave Me by Barrett Bowlin, which provides a series of people’s verbatim answers to unstated questions about a possible crime. Another standout is Alyssa Cole’s Just a Girl, which uses TikTok and podcast excerpts, YouTube transcripts, and the like, to show the mushrooming of a vicious online attack on an essentially blameless co-ed. Stanton McCaffery’s moving Will I See the Birds When I’m Gone is composed simply of an incarcerated man’s letters to his neglectful mother, written over a 23-year period.
Women writers may be more likely to talk about the extremes and entanglements of mother love and the long-term consequences of rape, as in Mary Thorson’s The Book of Ruth, Latoya Watkins’s Holler, Child, or Tananarive Due’s Rumpus Room. In each case, regardless of circumstances, the child still has that pull on the mother, whether for good or ill.
The traditional ‘perfect murder’ theme also appears, as in Abby Geni’s clever The Body Farm, which involves some grisly research, and Nils Gilbertson’s Lovely and Useless Things, which takes place in a speakeasy during Prohibition. Perfect murders are crimes that some perpetrators pull off and others do not. Shannon Taft’s Monster is a satisfying example.
I’m not sure whether Diana Gould intended Possessory Credit, her story about a scheming screenwriter and would-be perfect-murder perpetrator, to be humorous, but I laughed out loud at the predicament he created. Baby Trap by Toni LP Kelner is delightfully clever and begins with a Reddit post. More 2024 vibes!
I’ve enjoyed Jordan Harper’s novels so was poised to like his story, My Savage Year, and did. It was one of several involving adolescent confusions, secrets and bad judgement, including Rebecca Turkewitz’s boarding school nightmare, Sarah Lane’s School for Girls. Early mistakes can have a long tail, as the protagonists in these stories learn, especially the suicide hotline counsellor in Lisa Unger’s Unknown Caller.
Amongst all these tales, many of which have a distinctly 21st century feel and modern trappings, are some solid traditional mysteries, such as Scarlet Ribbons by Megan Abbott which is about a haunting…or is it? Frankie Y Bailey’s Matter of Trust and Gar Anthony Haywood’s With the Right Bait deal loosely with marital relationships; Nick Kolakowski’s Scorpions is about the lure of the dark side; and Karen Harrington’s The Mysterious Disappearance of Jason Whetstone discusses sibling rivalry.
As SA Cosby says in his introduction, short stories like these create a “…magic that happens for a brief moment, like a shooting star streaking across the sky, when you read a story that grabs you by the hand and says, ‘Come with me, see what I have to show you.’”
The 20 stories included come from 17 different sources, none of which is a traditional short mystery story magazines. For stories sourced from places like Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Mystery Tribune it suggests a list of Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense of 2023. By looking to new outlets the editors have ensured we’ll discover new authors – a crime fiction lover’s dream.
Mariner
Print/Kindle/iBook
£7.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars