The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

Foreword

The Best American Mystery Stories can now drink legally, turning twenty-one with this edition, and has been fortunate to have led a happy life through its early years. It was conceived at a lunch with my agent, Nat Sobel, a festive dining experience that we have shared every month for more than three decades. The series was fed by hundreds of the best writers in North America, and given a wonderful, caring home by Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

BAMS has had a blessed life from birth, eschewing the expectable growing pains of a newborn into a mature adult. The guest editor of the 1997 edition was the distinguished Robert B. Parker, and it made several bestseller lists. The next guest editor was America’s sweetheart, Sue Grafton, and that volume outsold the first. Sales, reviews, and, most important, the stories in each edition continued the excellence and success of the first books. Perhaps not surprisingly, the series hit a bump in the road when it hit its teenage years, the hardcover edition being dropped after 2008 because of reduced sales, leaving it exclusively a paperback. It quickly rebounded as it grew a little older, however, filling out and coming closer to realizing its potential by adding e-book editions.

It would be reasonable to expect a lot of changes over the years, and there have been some, but mostly behind the scenes so that readers would be unlikely to sense them. When stories were being read for the first book, my invaluable colleague, Michele Slung, without whom it would take me three years to produce this annual volume, examined about five hundred stories to determine whether they were mysteries and whether they were worth consideration. When the Internet became a greater part of our lives, we learned of more literary magazines, more little regional publishers, and electronic magazines (e-zines) that published mystery fiction. She now reads all or parts of three to four thousand stories every year. She then sends me those she thinks I should read, a stack that I whittle down to the fifty best, which are sent to the guest editor, who selects the twenty that go into the book; the other thirty make the honor roll. I can think of no other substantive changes, which I regard as a good thing. As Tony Hillerman said to me about thirty years ago (yes, yes, I know it’s a cliché, but that was the first time I heard it, and I can still hear it with his little bit of a twang), If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

One thing that changes every year is the guest editor, and everyone who has agreed to perform this task has done it as an act of generosity and self-sacrifice. Once an author has achieved the fame and success that comes with being a national bestseller (as all the guest editors have been), the drain on his or her time and energy is almost unfathomable. To put aside their books, to risk losing the battle with their own deadlines, should earn them immeasurable thanks (which I am happy to send).

John Sandford (the pseudonym of John Camp) had a long career as a journalist, resulting in a Pulitzer Prize in 1986. He decided to write fiction full-time three years later, when his first novel, Rules of Prey, became a huge success. He has produced approximately forty novels, every one of which has been on a national bestseller list in one format or another, but he is best known for the Prey series, starring Lucas Davenport, the handsome, well-tailored cop who drives a Porsche.

It would be inappropriate not to thank the previous guest editors, who, like Mr. Camp, gave so much time and effort to make the books in this series as good as they could be. I’ve offered kudos to Robert B. Parker and Sue Grafton, who were followed by 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 Lippman, James Patterson, and Elizabeth George, and I am in debt to them all.

Presuming that you are familiar with these giants of the mystery world, you will quickly perceive that despite their literary excellence, they produce very different kinds of fiction, ranging from hard-boiled to traditional detective stories to international thrillers to crime stories and more. The literary genre described as “mystery” is large and embraces multitudes. I define it liberally to mean any work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is integral to the theme or plot, and you will find a great range of styles and subgenres in the present volume. Please don’t call or write to complain that many of these stories are crime or psychological suspense rather than detective fiction. I know. Tales of observation and deduction, the staple of the so-called Golden Age (between the two world wars), have become more difficult to write (Agatha Christie used up too many plot ideas!), and we have seen the “whodunit” and the “howdunit” pushed more to the side of the road that has become dominated by the “whydunit.” This change has often resulted in superior literature, with character development and exploration unheard of in the 1920s and 1930s.

The hunt for stories for next year’s edition has already begun. While Michele Slung and I engage in a relentless quest to locate and read every mystery/crime/suspense story published during the course of the year, 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 a 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, on which I will happily acknowledge receipt of your story.

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 2017. The earlier in the year I receive the story, the more it is likely to warm my heart. For reasons known only to the blockheads who wait until Christmas week to submit a story published the previous spring, this happens every year, causing much severe irritability as I read a stack of stories while everyone else I know is busy celebrating the holiday season. It had better be a damned good story if you do this, because I already hate you. Due to the very tight production schedule for this book, the absolute firm deadline is December 31. If the story arrives two days later, it will not be read. Sorry.

O. P.