The Best American Mystery Stories 2011: The Best American Series

By Otto Penzler

The Best American Series®
First, Best, and Best-Selling

The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.
The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 includes

Lawrence Block, Brendan DuBois, Loren D. Estleman,
Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin, Ed Gorman, Richard Lange, S. J. Rozan,
Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, and others

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9780547678443

Otto Penzler

OTTO PENZLER is a renowned mystery editor, publisher, columnist, and owner of New York’s The Mysterious Bookshop, the oldest and largest bookstore solely dedicated to mystery fiction. He has edited more than fifty crime-fiction anthologies. He lives in New York.

Reviews for The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

[shelleyraec · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Best American Mystery Stories are an annual anthology that publishes a selection of tales published in magazines an anthologies during the year. Each year a guest editor is chosen who determines from a list of about 50 submissions, their favourite 20 stories to be included. Harlan Coben is this years editor and as a fan of his books I was interested to read his choices.The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 has great variety and I was more than impressed with the overall quality. Of the twenty short stories there were only two I didn’t much care for. For me the stand out’s included Clean Slate by Lawrence Block is the story of a woman damaged by her childhood who has found a way to take revenge, Flying Solo by Ed Gorman involves two elderly men dying of cancer leaving a better world behind them and Chin Yong Yun Takes a Case by SJ Rozan is a case of amateur detection in Chinatown by a minor character in Rozan’s Lydia Chin series.Many of the stories are quite dark and violent as to be expected when the story centers around crime. Some mysteries are solved, others are open ended leaving you to wonder. In others just who is the victim isn’t clear. My interest in several authors work was piqued by this collection, others I was already a fan of.I really enjoyed reading the Contributors Notes where the author provides some background to the development of their story. It’s an inside look into inspiration that is rarely seen.The Best American Mystery Series 2011 is a terrific read and I hope to get my hands on a few of the previous years issues. If you are a crime/mystery fan then you will surely appreciate this outstanding anthology, it’s a must read.