The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 - Paperback

by Otto Penzler (Author)

"[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.

Back Jacket

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

"If you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you."
Scott Turow, guest editor

Since 1915 the Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very 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 2006 includes Jeffery Deaver, Andrew Klavan, Jane Haddam, Elmore Leonard, Emily Raboteau, Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Karen E. Bender, William Harrison, C.J. Box, Ed McBain, and others.

Scott Turow, guest editor, is the author of numerous best-selling novels, including Presumed Innocent, and his latest, Ordinary Heroes, . His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and have sold over twenty-five million copies worldwide.

Look for the other best-selling titles in the Best American series:

The Best American Short Stories
The Best American Nonrequired Reading
The Best American Essays
The Best American Sports Writing
The Best American Travel Writing
The Best American Science and Nature Writing
The Best American Spiritual Writing
and our newest addition, The Best American Comics"