Best American Mystery Stories 2016

The 2016 edition of The Best American Mystery Stories is a fairly good collection, with some big names, but once again there is the ongoing debate with what a mystery story actually is. Series editor Otto Penzler writes: "While I love good puzzles and tales of pure ratiocination, few of these are written today, as the mystery genre has evolved (or devolved, depending on your point of view) into a more character-driven form of literature, with
more emphasis on the “why” of a crime’s commission than a “who” or “how.” It's interesting to note that the only story that has any connection to ratiocination is "Street of the Dead House," by Robert Lopresti, which is "Murders of the Rue Morgue" told from the point of view of the orangutan (this also appeared in The Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2016).

So what we get is really crime stories, which is fine. There are some heavy hitters in this volume, including Stephen King, writing about a rural murder in "A Death" (I would have thought King would have given us a twist in this story, but the killer is known throughout) and Elmore Leonard, with "Something to Do," about a stand-off between a mild-mannered veterinarian and some scumbags. Chloroform always comes in handy. King, as usual, knows how to open a story: "Jim Trusdale had a shack on the west side of his father’s gone-to-seed ranch, and that was where he was when Sheriff Barclay and half a dozen deputized townsmen found him, sitting in the one chair by the cold stove, wearing a dirty barn coat and reading an old issue of the Black Hills Pioneer by lantern light. Looking at it, anyway."

Another good line is "I hadn't been thinking about killing Delwood. Not really. But you know how people sometimes have just had enough." That's from "Rearview Mirror," buy Art Taylor, about a couple on the move. They meet cute--she's the clerk in a convenience store, and he robs it and she gives him her number. "On September 12, 1994, in my second week of college, I killed Russell Gramercy," begins Brian Tobin's "Entwined," one of the better stories here. The narrator has killed a man accidentally in a car accident, and is of course guilt-ridden. But there's a great twist.

I also liked "Border Crossing," an homage to "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," but on the Mexican border, by Susan Thornton, and the very suspenseful "Christmas Eve at the Exit," by Kristine Kathryn Rush, about a mother and girl on the run from an abusive husband. Also full of suspense is Georgina Ruth's "The Mountain Top," set in the near future when a farmer and his wife deal with a pair of toughs. There's also a Western story in here, "Christians," by Tom Franklin.

I'm hard pressed to name my favorite story. I very much liked Evan Lewis' "The Continental Opposite," which revives Dashiell Hammet's old hard-boiled private eye, and "Fool Proof," by Bruce Robert Coffin, is also something of an homage, both to a part of Les Miserables and a Twilight Zone episode.

But I think the best this year goes to the opening story, "The Little Men," by Meghan Abbott. It's a hard story to summarize, but it's set in old Hollywood and captures the allure of that era. It's not so much the story but the fantastic writing that hooked me. And if you have ever thought you heard something scratching behind the walls, it will get you spooked.

So I guess the days of the whodunit and locked-room mystery are over, but writers are still putting their interesting stamps on the genre, and I'm eager to read them.