Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @marinerbooks @williammorrowbooks for a review copy of The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022.
What genre do you turn to when life gets stressful? It varies for me, but lately it has been mystery,
suspense, and/or romance. I made an impromptu
trip back to Michigan to see my Grandma who isn’t feeling well this past weekend
and I’ve gotten behind on posts. Please
forgive me as I catch up! I loved this
explanation in the Foreword to this collection, “Whatever the mechanism, and whether
or not we ask, fiction helps us make sense of life, the universe, everything.”
The Best American Mystery and Suspense is a fantastic collection
of the top twenty mystery and suspense stories published in 2021. I was intrigued by the Foreword by Steph Cha
where she explained her process of combing through various publications and
anthologies published in 2021 and selecting the top fifty stories. These stories were then forwarded on to Jess
Walter, the author of Beautiful Ruins. I
enjoyed Beautiful Ruins, but now realize I need to find Walter’s works of
suspense and mystery. Walter’s Introduction
explained his process of further narrowing down the stories to the top twenty
stories in a humorous way. I loved his introduction
and in fact think it’s one of the most entertaining introductions that I’ve
ever read. The foreword and introduction
were a great set-up for the stories themselves.
The collection included a lot of unique and intriguing
stories. I have to admit though that my
favorite story was “Long Live the Girl Detective” by Megan Pillow. The Girl Detective is not named, but it is
Nancy Drew. She is referred to as “The
Girl Detective Who Is Dead but Not” as she investigates her own murder and
decides to take back the narrative of her own story in the modern day. Bess and George even make an appearance. I’ve loved Nancy Drew since I was a child and
this story surprised and delighted me. I
did enjoy so many of the other stories and they definitely have kept me
thinking about them. It’s also introduced
me to a lot of new to me authors that I will definitely need to keep my eye out
for. I enjoy short stories.
This book was published on November 1, 2022 and is now
available.
That foreword is so true
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