The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023

by Lisa Unger, Steph Cha

Overview

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger and series editor Steph Cha.

“This form has a special kind of magic, the ability to transport you quickly, intensely, to capture character, time, place, and story with immediacy,” writes guest editor Lisa Unger in her introduction. The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run. An injured fighter turned bouncer seeks vengeance for his lost love. An assassin on his last job finds himself questioning his life choices and breaks all the rules to understand his final victim. By turns thrilling and enlightening, each story, according to Unger, “will have you holding your breath, flipping the pages, will leave you thinking about people and why they do the dark, dangerous, frightening things that they do.”

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023 includes Ashley-­Ruth M. Bernier • William Boyle • S. A. Cosby • Jacqueline Freimor • James A. Hearn • Ladee Hubbard • A. J. Jacono • Adam Meyer • Silvia Moreno-­Garcia • Walter Mosley • Leigh Newman • Joyce Carol Oates • Margaret Randall • Annie Reed • Anthony Neil Smith • Faye Snowden • Jervey Tervalon • Joseph S. Walker • Thaai Walker • Jess Walter

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063315815
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Series:	Best American Series
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	59,176
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

LISA UNGER, guest editor, is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including her latest, Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six. She has been nominated for or won numerous awards, including the Strand Critics, Audie, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice Awards as well as the Hammett Prize. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few authors, including Agatha Christie. Lisa is currently copresident of the International Thriller Writers organization.

Steph Cha is the author of the Juniper Song mystery series and Your House Will Pay, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller and the California Book Award, and has been a finalist for a Young Lions Fiction Award, a Macavity Award, a Lefty Award, a Barry Award, and a Dagger Award, as well as longlisted for the Aspen Prize. She is an editor and critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she edited the noir section for almost five years. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Editorial Reviews

08/21/2023

Though this impressive 20-story anthology features solid contributions from heavy hitters including Walter Mosley and S.A. Cosby, its most memorable entries are from relative newcomers who honor genre traditions while playfully pushing the envelope. Jacqueline Freimor’s “Foreword,” for example, utilizes the introduction to a novel by fictional author Edbert Reid to tell a twisty crime story. Footnotes cite literary studies of Reid’s work and dole out key nuggets of biographical information—including the fact that he was murdered—that artfully unveil the mystery bit by bit. Adam Meyer’s chilling “Mr. Filbert’s Classroom” toys with reader expectations after a school shooting leaves parents and children traumatized and a local sheriff begins to have doubts about the ostensibly heroic intervention that stopped the slaughter. Another standout is Annie Reed’s “The Blood-Red Leaves of Autumn,” a whodunit set on a space station that’s been orbiting Earth for decades waiting for “the world’s politicians and mega-corporations and religious zealots” to reverse catastrophic climate change. Reed delivers on the story’s clever premise with propulsive pacing and a surprise-filled plot. This rich tapestry of promising genre talent bodes well for the future of crime fiction. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"In this selection of tales exploring crime-sparking marginalization and thwarted desires, guest editor Alafair Burke and debut series editor Steph Cha have created a powerful vehicle for processing 2020’s volatility...Cha and Burke have curated a magical collection that serves as a master class in suspense writing."  — Booklist

 "To Cha’s great credit, along with her guest editor, novelist Alafair Burke, this year’s edition...not only features many women and writers of color, but also pairs household names like Alex Segura, Lisa Unger and Laura Lippman...with top up-and-comers to paint a clear picture of the genre in 2021."  — USA Today

From the Publisher

10/06/2023

On the evidence of this collection, mystery and suspense short stories still thrive in the wake of COVID. All the stories in this collection are high-acceptable or better, while half of the 20 entries are superior. The best break free completely from the cliches of earlier crime and detective fiction, and most don't depend on a private investigator or police officer to solve things. Only one does, Jess Walter's startling original "Love Interest," and it inverts all the traditional tropes in its surprising ending. "Mr. Filbert's Classroom" by Adam Meyer is a superior piece of fantasy creeping in under the guise of a police investigation of a school shooting. No surprise, Walter Mosley's "No Exit" and Joyce Carol Oates's "Clues…" are radically different takes on the traditional stuff of crime and suspense fiction; Oates's tale of a woman reflecting on her missing sister, whom she both loves and loathes, is breathtaking. There's also a dead woman tied to a tree in a space station (Annie Reed's "The Blood-Red Leaves of Autumn"), and parallel narratives of two ways reality could go in Margaret Randall's "The Invitation." VERDICT Unger and Cha edit an exceptional selection that clearly shows crime and suspense fiction flourishing still. Mystery lovers will snatch it off the shelf.—David Keymer

Library Journal