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The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (The Best American Series)
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Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
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Our Price: $11.20
You Save: $ 2.80 ( 20% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Average Customer Rating:
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The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (The Best American Series) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.087208
EAN: 9780618517473
ISBN: 0618517472
Label: Houghton Mifflin
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2006-10-11
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Studio: Houghton Mifflin
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.087208
EAN: 9780618517473
ISBN: 0618517472
Label: Houghton Mifflin
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2006-10-11
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Studio: Houghton Mifflin
Editorial Review of The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (The Best American Series)
"[Most of] these stories are portraits, in styles ranging from sly to harrowing, of how crimes occurred ... If you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you." -- from the introduction by Scott Turow
Best-selling author Scott Turow takes the helm for the tenth edition of this annual, featuring twenty-one of the past year's most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense.
Elmore Leonard tells the tale of a young woman who's fled home with a convicted bank robber. Walter Mosley describes an over-the-hill private detective and his new client, a woman named Karma. C. J. Box explores the fate of two Czech immigrants stranded by the side of the road in Yellowstone Park. Ed McBain begins his story on role-playing with the line "'Why don't we kill somebody?' she suggested." Wendy Hornsby tells of a wild motorcycle chase through the canyons outside Las Vegas. Laura Lippman describes the "Crack Cocaine Diet." And James Lee Burke writes of a young boy who may have been a close friend of Bugsy Siegel.
As Scott Turow notes in his introduction, these stories are "about crime -- its commission, its aftermath, its anxieties, its effect on character." The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 is a powerful collection for all readers who enjoy fiction that deals with the extremes of human passion and its dark consequences.
Best-selling author Scott Turow takes the helm for the tenth edition of this annual, featuring twenty-one of the past year's most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense.
Elmore Leonard tells the tale of a young woman who's fled home with a convicted bank robber. Walter Mosley describes an over-the-hill private detective and his new client, a woman named Karma. C. J. Box explores the fate of two Czech immigrants stranded by the side of the road in Yellowstone Park. Ed McBain begins his story on role-playing with the line "'Why don't we kill somebody?' she suggested." Wendy Hornsby tells of a wild motorcycle chase through the canyons outside Las Vegas. Laura Lippman describes the "Crack Cocaine Diet." And James Lee Burke writes of a young boy who may have been a close friend of Bugsy Siegel.
As Scott Turow notes in his introduction, these stories are "about crime -- its commission, its aftermath, its anxieties, its effect on character." The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 is a powerful collection for all readers who enjoy fiction that deals with the extremes of human passion and its dark consequences.
Customer Reviews of The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 (The Best American Series)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: round up the usual suspects
Review: C.J. Box, Jeffery Deaver, Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, R.T. Smith, and Scott Wolven. Scott Turow doesn't write much short fiction, but man can he pick them. This might be the best volume yet. It took me a while to start buying them, but they've turned out to be the premiere of the Best American Series, many years it is better than BASS or BAE or BANRR. Definitely a good buy.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Best Stories Taken from The Best Anthologies
Review: This collection is made up of Scott Turrow's selections of stories taken from many other great collections such as Dangerous Women, The Cocaine Chronicles and other leading anthologies. Being the case this means if you are into various author anthologies you more than likely have come across a few of these stories before but it also means most of these stories in here are good. Like any various author anthology stories do vary in quality and style from author to author. I have to admit I didn't enjoy every story within but there are certainly more than your usual number of literacy hits inside. The great collections not only allow you the pleasure of reading authors you already like but also introduce you to new ones as well which this one does over and over again.
Unfortunately for me I'd already read the great collection Dangerous Women before this so about a third of the stories inside here I had already read. Also because that collection was a fairly niche product being an anthology with strong female villains and other characters, the result is the 2006 edition of The Best American Mystery Stories also is very heavy with this factor. I recommend you get both books. If you want to read my reviews of those stories both in this and in Dangerous Women click on that book's link, I'll concentrate on the best of the stories within this collection not in that one.
Dust Up by Wendy Hornsby is my pick of the stories by authors not many people would have heard of before. Pansy is a raptor watcher who is witnessing the birth of an endangered eagle. Hit men out of Vegas murder a human then murder the mother of the endangered chick which Pansy is watching. Pansy is furious and will do whatever it takes to stop them killing the chick as well. She leads them on a great bike/car chase where she plans on getting her vengeance before returning to the Nevada canyon to help the bird.
I also thought it was great to finally read a story by C.J. Box that doesn't have park ranger Joe Pickett in it, not because I don't usually enjoy those, it's just that great authors are never tested until they can show they can write something different which is exactly what he did with Pirates of Yellowstone. This story is the tale of a couple of Czech guys on a working visa who have arrived in Yellowstone only to find their promised jobs were not kept by their employer. In exchange for board they help out a struggling mother in the meantime and decide that blackmail is their only way to prosper in America.
I thought Jane Haddam's story Edelweiss was also up there quality wise about the plot by two high school girls to murder their next door neighbour who babys her cat.
You can always rely on Laura Lippman to produce a great short story and I guess the only reason they didn't use the story she wrote in Dangerous Women was because the one she wrote in Cocaine Chronicles was even better. The Crack Cocaine Diet has a couple of superficial white teenagers venturing into the hood to buy some cocaine so they will lose weight and make the guys who dumped them look stupid in front of their friends at an upcoming party.
Since Amazon doesn't list the stories and authors on this webpage for some reason, I will do so for those interested.
Theft by Karen E Bender
Pirates of Yellowstone by C.J. Box
Why Bugsy Seal Was a Friend of Mine by James Lee Burke
Born Bad by Jefferey Deaver
Edelweiss by Jane Haddam
Texas heat by William Harrison
Peacekeeper by Alan Heathcock
A.K.A. Moses Rockefella by Emily Holmes II
Dust Up by Wendy Hornsby
Her Lord and Master by Andrew Klevan
Louly and Pretty Boy by Elmore Leonard
The Crack Cocaine Diet by Laura Lippman
Improvisation by Ed McBain
McHenry's Gift by Mike Maclean
Karma by Walter Mosley
So Help Me God by Joyce Carol Oates
Smile by Emily Roboteau
Ina Grove by R.T. Smith
Ringing the Changes by Jeff Somers
Vigilance by Scott Wolven
A great collection, excellent value for money!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Best American Mystery Stories are so so
Review: I have read half the book, some stories are okay and some are less than okay, not what I expected but it may help a student I am tutoring as they are short stories.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: got it for a gift
Review: got it for my girlfriend she did not get into it at all she might have read the first quarter of it and then collected dust afterwards. she said it was boring because the stories are too short.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A truly excellent collection
Review: Twenty-one mysteries, almost all of them perfectly pitched. Perfect for one a night bedtime reading.
Most of the stories are from familiar names like Ed McBain, Joyce Carol Oates, Elmore Leonard. A few names I wasn't familiar with, but will look for in the future.
Describing the merits of each of the stories or even a sampling would be both unfair and a waste. Each story has a different style and each is rewarding. There are a couple that move more slowly than the others, but that's a matter of style and nothing more. Each of the mystery stories in this delightful volume is a keeper.
Jerry
Review Summary: round up the usual suspects
Review: C.J. Box, Jeffery Deaver, Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, R.T. Smith, and Scott Wolven. Scott Turow doesn't write much short fiction, but man can he pick them. This might be the best volume yet. It took me a while to start buying them, but they've turned out to be the premiere of the Best American Series, many years it is better than BASS or BAE or BANRR. Definitely a good buy.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Best Stories Taken from The Best Anthologies
Review: This collection is made up of Scott Turrow's selections of stories taken from many other great collections such as Dangerous Women, The Cocaine Chronicles and other leading anthologies. Being the case this means if you are into various author anthologies you more than likely have come across a few of these stories before but it also means most of these stories in here are good. Like any various author anthology stories do vary in quality and style from author to author. I have to admit I didn't enjoy every story within but there are certainly more than your usual number of literacy hits inside. The great collections not only allow you the pleasure of reading authors you already like but also introduce you to new ones as well which this one does over and over again.
Unfortunately for me I'd already read the great collection Dangerous Women before this so about a third of the stories inside here I had already read. Also because that collection was a fairly niche product being an anthology with strong female villains and other characters, the result is the 2006 edition of The Best American Mystery Stories also is very heavy with this factor. I recommend you get both books. If you want to read my reviews of those stories both in this and in Dangerous Women click on that book's link, I'll concentrate on the best of the stories within this collection not in that one.
Dust Up by Wendy Hornsby is my pick of the stories by authors not many people would have heard of before. Pansy is a raptor watcher who is witnessing the birth of an endangered eagle. Hit men out of Vegas murder a human then murder the mother of the endangered chick which Pansy is watching. Pansy is furious and will do whatever it takes to stop them killing the chick as well. She leads them on a great bike/car chase where she plans on getting her vengeance before returning to the Nevada canyon to help the bird.
I also thought it was great to finally read a story by C.J. Box that doesn't have park ranger Joe Pickett in it, not because I don't usually enjoy those, it's just that great authors are never tested until they can show they can write something different which is exactly what he did with Pirates of Yellowstone. This story is the tale of a couple of Czech guys on a working visa who have arrived in Yellowstone only to find their promised jobs were not kept by their employer. In exchange for board they help out a struggling mother in the meantime and decide that blackmail is their only way to prosper in America.
I thought Jane Haddam's story Edelweiss was also up there quality wise about the plot by two high school girls to murder their next door neighbour who babys her cat.
You can always rely on Laura Lippman to produce a great short story and I guess the only reason they didn't use the story she wrote in Dangerous Women was because the one she wrote in Cocaine Chronicles was even better. The Crack Cocaine Diet has a couple of superficial white teenagers venturing into the hood to buy some cocaine so they will lose weight and make the guys who dumped them look stupid in front of their friends at an upcoming party.
Since Amazon doesn't list the stories and authors on this webpage for some reason, I will do so for those interested.
Theft by Karen E Bender
Pirates of Yellowstone by C.J. Box
Why Bugsy Seal Was a Friend of Mine by James Lee Burke
Born Bad by Jefferey Deaver
Edelweiss by Jane Haddam
Texas heat by William Harrison
Peacekeeper by Alan Heathcock
A.K.A. Moses Rockefella by Emily Holmes II
Dust Up by Wendy Hornsby
Her Lord and Master by Andrew Klevan
Louly and Pretty Boy by Elmore Leonard
The Crack Cocaine Diet by Laura Lippman
Improvisation by Ed McBain
McHenry's Gift by Mike Maclean
Karma by Walter Mosley
So Help Me God by Joyce Carol Oates
Smile by Emily Roboteau
Ina Grove by R.T. Smith
Ringing the Changes by Jeff Somers
Vigilance by Scott Wolven
A great collection, excellent value for money!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Best American Mystery Stories are so so
Review: I have read half the book, some stories are okay and some are less than okay, not what I expected but it may help a student I am tutoring as they are short stories.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: got it for a gift
Review: got it for my girlfriend she did not get into it at all she might have read the first quarter of it and then collected dust afterwards. she said it was boring because the stories are too short.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A truly excellent collection
Review: Twenty-one mysteries, almost all of them perfectly pitched. Perfect for one a night bedtime reading.
Most of the stories are from familiar names like Ed McBain, Joyce Carol Oates, Elmore Leonard. A few names I wasn't familiar with, but will look for in the future.
Describing the merits of each of the stories or even a sampling would be both unfair and a waste. Each story has a different style and each is rewarding. There are a couple that move more slowly than the others, but that's a matter of style and nothing more. Each of the mystery stories in this delightful volume is a keeper.
Jerry