The Best American Mystery Stories 2019

Foreword

Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose. For The Best American Mystery Stories series, it’s true: the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

When the series began in 1997, the guest editor was Robert B. Parker. I was the series editor. This year the guest editor is Jonathan Lethem. I’m still the series editor.

The mission back then was to try to read every mystery story published by an American or Canadian in 1996, and more than five hundred stories were examined in order to find the twenty best. For this edition, the mission remained precisely the same — but more than three thousand stories were examined.

A primary source for great crime fiction was the specialty magazines (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine), a handful of mystery anthologies, literary journals, and popular consumer magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Today those publications are still a treasure trove of stories suitable for being collected in The Best American Mystery Stories, but other mystery magazines have been created (notably The Strand and the rebirth of Black Mask), the modest number of anthologies has mushroomed into scores, mostly from small publishers, and electronic magazines (e-zines), of which I was unaware in 1996, have drawn some highly talented authors to their sites.

The look of the books in this series remains largely unchanged twenty-three years later, but the hardcover editions have been abandoned to be replaced with electronic editions. Additionally, the original publisher was Houghton Mifflin and, after a merger, it is now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. You (and I) would barely notice the difference in the books, because there is none.

Are these changes good or bad? Both, but mostly good. I lament the passing of the great Dr. Parker, as well as the loss of the next three guest editors: Sue Grafton, Evan Hunter (Ed McBain), and Donald E. Westlake. (Thankfully, the others appear to be in good health, still writing their popular and acclaimed books.) Examining literally thousands of stories is a huge challenge for Michele Slung, my invaluable colleague, who did all the preliminary reading then and still does; without her, this series could not exist, as I am such a slow reader that I practically move my lips when I read. The disappointment is that so many e-zines do not produce fully edited stories, some of which have unrealized potential.

There is, however, lots of good news, not least of which is that the distinguished publishing house of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt continues the series and supports it with outstanding attention to detail (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a typo, to mention one element) and keeps most of the backlist in print.

The expanding numbers of small independent publishers can only be seen as a good thing. The optimism of starting a new business, particularly in an area that has minuscule profit margins, must be applauded.

Although the percentage of people in America who read books for pleasure remains below 50, more independent bookshops have opened than closed for six consecutive years, which warms the heart.

Enough! Time to get down to the reason you purchased this book. As seems to be true on an annual basis, this is a superb collection of original fiction about extremes of human behavior caused by despair, hate, greed, fear, envy, insanity, or love — sometimes in combination. Desperate people may be prone to desperate acts, a fertile ground for poor choices. Many of the authors in this cornucopia of crime have described how aberrant solutions to difficult situations may occur, and why perpetrators felt that their violent responses to conflicts seemed appropriate to them.

The psychology of crime has become the dominant form of mystery fiction in recent years, while the classic tale of observation and deduction has faded further into the background. Those tales of pure detection may be the most difficult mystery stories to write, as it has become increasingly difficult to find original motivations for murder, or a new murder method, or an original way to hide a vital clue until the detective unearths it. The working definition of a mystery story for this series is any work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or the plot. The detective story is merely one subgenre in the literary form known as the mystery, just as are romantic suspense, espionage, legal legerdemain, medical thriller, political duplicity, and stories told from the point of view of the villain.

As Michele reads the enormous number of submissions, she passes along those worthy of consideration, after which I select the fifty best (or at least those I liked best) to send to the guest editor, who selects the twenty that are then collected and reprinted, the other thirty being listed in an honor roll as “Other Distinguished Mystery Stories.”

The guest editor this year is Jonathan Lethem, the outstanding author of The Feral Detective. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, published twenty-five years ago, successfully combined elements of science fiction and detective fiction. After publishing three more science fiction novels, he published Motherless Brooklyn, a successful National Book Critics Circle Award winner. His next book, The Fortress of Solitude, became a New York Times bestseller. In 2005 he received a MacArthur Fellowship.

This is an appropriate time (it’s always an appropriate time) to thank the previous guest editors, who have done so much to make this prestigious series such a resounding success: Robert B. Parker, Sue Grafton, Ed McBain, Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates, Scott Turow, Carl Hiaasen, George Pelecanos, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, Lisa Scottoline, Laura Lipp-man, James Patterson, Elizabeth George, John Sandford, and Louise Penny.

While I engage in a relentless quest to locate and read every mystery/crime/suspense story published, I live in terror that I will miss a worthy story, so if you are an author, editor, or publisher, or care about one, please feel free to send a book, magazine, or tearsheet to me c/o The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. If the story first appeared electronically, you must submit a hard copy. It is vital to include the author’s contact information. No unpublished material will be considered for what should be obvious reasons. No material will be returned. If you distrust the postal service, enclose a self-addressed, stamped postcard.

To be eligible, a story must have been written by an American or Canadian and first published in an American or Canadian publication in the calendar year 2019. The earlier in the year I receive the story, the more fondly I regard it. For reasons known only to the dunderheads who wait until Christmas week to submit a story published the previous spring, holding eligible stories for months before submitting them occurs every year, causing seething anger while I read a stack of stories while my friends are trimming the Christmas tree or otherwise celebrating the holiday season. It had better be a damned good story if you do this.

Because of the very tight production schedule for this book, the absolute firm deadline is December 31. If the story arrives one day later, it will not be read. This is neither an arrogant nor a whimsical deadline. The tight schedule was established twenty-three years ago and it’s the only way to get the book published on time. I’m certain you understand.

o. p.