The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

The Best American Series
^®is a registered trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
The Best American Mystery Stories
™ is a trademark of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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ISSN
1094-8384

ISBN
978-0-544-03464-8

e
ISBN
978-0-544-03257-6
v1.0914

These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

“My Heart Is Either Broken” by Megan Abbott. First published in
Dangerous Women
. Copyright © 2013 by Megan Abbott. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Collectors” by Daniel Alarcón. First published in
The New Yorker
, July 29, 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Daniel Alarcón. Reprinted by permission of Daniel Alarcón.

“Princess Anne” by Jim Allyn. First published in
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
, November 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Jim Allyn. Reprinted by permission of Jim Allyn.

“Snuff” by Jodi Angel. First published in
One Story
, Issue No. 179.
From You Only Get Letters from Jail
. Copyright © 2013 by Jodi Angel. Reprinted by permission of Tin House Books.

“Former Marine” (pp. 1–19) from
A Permanent Member of the Family: Selected Stories by Russell Banks
. Copyright © 2013 by Russell Banks. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers and Knopf Canada.

“Going Across Jordan” by James Lee Burke. First published in the
Southern Review
, Volume 49:2, Spring 2013. Copyright © 2013 by James Lee Burke. Reprinted by permission of the
Southern Review
.

“Aida” by Patricia Engel. First published in the
Harvard Review
43. Copyright © 2013 by Patricia Engel. Reprinted by permission of Patricia Engel.

“The Wrecker” by Ernest Finney. First published in the
Sewanee Review
, Volume CXXI, Number 3. Copyright © 2013 by Ernest Finney. Reprinted by permission of the
Sewanee Review
.

“I Will Follow You” by Roxane Gay. First published in
West Branch
, Number 72, Winter 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Roxane Gay. Reprinted by permission of Roxane Gay.

“Bush-Hammer Finish” by Michelle Butler Hallett. First published in the
Fiddlehead
, No. 257, Autumn 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Michelle Butler Hallett. Reprinted by permission of Michelle Butler Hallett.

“Small Kingdoms” by Charlaine Harris. First published in
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
, November 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Charlaine Harris. Reprinted by permission of Charlaine Harris Inc.

“Almost Like Christmas” by Joseph Heller. First published in the
Strand Magazine
, June–Sept 2013. Copyright © 2013 by the Estate of Joseph Heller. Reprinted by permission.

“The Covering Storm” by David H. Ingram. First published in
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
, November 2013. Copyright © 2013 by David H. Ingram. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“A Good Marriage” by Ed Kurtz. First published in
Thuglit
, Issue Five. Copyright © 2014 by Ed Kurtz. Reprinted by permission of Ed Kurtz.

“Gauley Season” by Matthew Neill Null. First published in
West Branch
, Number 73, Fall 2013. Copyright © 2014 by Matthew Neill Null. Reprinted by permission of Matthew Neill Null.

“Pleasant Grove” by Scott Loring Sanders. First published in
Floyd County Moonshine
, Vol. 5, Issue 2, Fall 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Scott Loring Sanders. Reprinted by permission of Scott Loring Sanders.

“Festered Wounds” by Nancy Pauline Simpson. First published in
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
, March 2013. Copyright © 2013 by Nancy Pauline Simpson. Reprinted by permission of Nancy Pauline Simpson.

“Antarctica” by Laura van den Berg. First published in
Glimmer Train
, Issue 88, Fall 2013. From
The Isle of Youth
by Laura van den Berg. Copyright © 2013 by Laura van den Berg. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Foreword

T
HE WORDS
subjective
and
subjectivity
are extremely useful. What they describe is like the blood in the veins of an editor who is forced to reject a book or story. There is an inherent insult implicit in rejection. The editor is essentially saying,
Your work isn’t good enough; it doesn’t measure up
. What a dreadful thing to hear! After months, or even years, of slaving over a manuscript—rewriting again and again, arriving at
le mot juste
after trying a dozen other words, even desperately resorting to a thesaurus, editing line by line, fine-tuning (comma? or semicolon?)—and finally being convinced that it is as good as it is ever going to be, you are so proud of it that you are willing to send it out to the world. To hear that it’s being rejected is brutally painful.

A diplomatic editor can help lessen the blow by employing the word
subjective
. “I have no doubt that plenty of editors will feel differently about it, because of course all taste is subjective.” “I’m sorry, but it’s just not my kind of book—but I’m sure you understand that editorial decisions are always subjective.” And so on. These aren’t lies. Well, not always. There are times when the complete sentence might well be “It’s just not my kind of book . . . because I like books that have a modicum of originality and that haven’t been scrawled with a crayon, like this one.”

As I read stories for this distinguished anthology series, I am reminded of this notion of subjectivity, because so many different kinds of stories fall into the broad category of mystery and I don’t want to be overly exclusionary, selecting only a single type of story that will keep the scope of the book too narrow. Like you, and like most people, I have subjective preferences for certain styles, subjects, characters, and plot elements of fiction, to which I naturally gravitate. My taste tends to run to darker, tougher stories (probably as a counterweight to my generally happy, sunny, optimistic personality). I have never found myself enthralled by the exploits of cats or other household pets as they use their extraordinary brainpower and intuitive sense to help their somewhat dim owners solve complicated crimes, though these tales aren’t much worse than books in which the police are portrayed as such dunderheads that crimes need to be solved for them by florists, hairdressers, cooks, fashion designers, gardeners, Realtors, or booksellers.

Mystery is a very broad genre that includes any story in which a crime (usually murder) or the threat of a crime (creating suspense) is central to the plot or theme. Detective stories are one subgenre, others being crime (often told from the point of view of the criminal), suspense (impending manmade calamity), espionage (crimes against the state, which potentially have more victims than a single murder), and such sub-subgenres as police procedurals, historicals, humor, puzzles, private eyes, noir, etc. I love good stories in all these forms and others.

This series of anthologies tends to be more balanced than my own range of preference by virtue of several factors. First, my colleague on every book in the series has been and will remain forever (please, Lord) Michele Slung, who does the initial reading. She examines and reads (at least partially) somewhere in the neighborhood of three thousand to five thousand stories a year, culling the nonmysteries and the truly dreadful (of which there are more than you might imagine in your darkest nightmare). She then sends me stacks of stories she feels are eligible, from which I select the fifty of which I am most fond. Her taste is more catholic than mine, and her taste is impeccable, so I am exposed to a wider range of fiction than I might normally choose to read.

The second factor is the taste of the guest editor. It is almost impossible to think that two people who read a great deal will have exactly the same taste, and that certainly has proven to be the case with all the authors who have agreed to be guest editors for this series. To be fair, however, some stories are so obviously brilliant that it would be unthinkable for anyone to fail to appreciate them. So yes, subjectivity is significant, but sometimes an accomplished writer will have the stars align so that he or she produces work that is so transcendently exquisite that argument would be either futile or puerile.

Laura Lippman, the guest editor for this volume, frequently has been on regional and national bestseller lists, both for her outstanding Tess Monaghan series and for her suspenseful stand-alone novels. She has been nominated for seven Edgar Allan Poe Awards, winning for
Charm City
. Although on a tight deadline for the delivery of her next novel, she still somehow made the time to read all fifty stories that I submitted to her and come up with a wonderful final list. As the series editor, I get to play my own game and select my own choices—a list not shared with anyone. I bring it up because I’ve raised the issue of subjectivity as well as the notion that some stories defy argument. Seventeen of the stories in this book were also on my list of the top twenty of the year. Of course, I am utterly flabbergasted that Laura didn’t pick my other top three, but I concede that this is how we know subjectivity exists, and I have nothing at all against the three outliers.

It should go without needing to be mentioned that I’m grateful to Laura for the tremendous amount of time, energy, and thought she put into the role of guest editor, just as I am to the authors who took on the same task in the past, without whom these very distinguished collections would not be as excellent as they are (and that’s not just my subjective opinion; the reviews have been nothing short of astounding ever since the first anthology was released, in 1998). My deepest gratitude continues to resonate for Lisa Scottoline, Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, George Pelecanos, Carl Hiaasen, Scott Turow, Joyce Carol Oates, Nelson DeMille, Michael Connelly, James Ellroy, Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake, Ed McBain, Sue Grafton, and Robert B. Parker.

There can be little as troubling as learning that I missed a great story that deserved to be in
The Best American Mystery Stories
of the year. It’s happened twice that I know about. Once the story was in an author’s collection that had been sent to me but never got to my desk; I learned of it almost a year later. Another story was in a literary journal that wasn’t familiar to me (I can guarantee you that I know it now and it is read carefully). As a result, I engage in a nearly obsessive quest to locate and read every mystery/crime/suspense story published, living in eye-bulging fear that I will miss another worthy story. Therefore, if you are an author, editor, or publisher, or care about one, please feel free to submit a story for next year’s anthology and 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 and I’ll reassure you that it arrived and will be read.

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