The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (2 page)

As has been true every year (and this is the nineteenth volume in the series), this is a wonderful collection of original fiction about extremes of human behavior caused by despair, hate, greed, fear, envy, insanity, or love—sometimes in combination. Desperate people may consider desperate acts, and desperation is a fertile ground for poor choices. Many of the authors in this cornucopia of crime have described how antisocial solutions to difficult situations may occur, and why perpetrators feel that their violent responses to conflicts seem appropriate.

The psychology of crime has become the dominant form of mystery fiction in recent years, while the classic detective tale of observation and deduction has faded further into the background. Those tales of pure deduction may be the most difficult mystery stories to write, as it has become increasingly difficult to find original motivations for murder, or a new murder method, or an original way to hide a vital clue until the detective unearths it. The working definition of a mystery story for this series is any work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or the plot. The detective story is merely one subgenre in the literary form known as the mystery, just as are romantic suspense, espionage, legal legerdemain, medical thriller, political duplicity, and stories told from the point of view of the villain.

To find the best of these stories is a yearlong quest, largely enabled by Nat Sobel, the best literary agent in the world, and by my invaluable colleague, Michele Slung, who culls the mystery magazines, both printed and electronic, for suitable stories, just as she does short story collections (works by a single author) and anthologies (works by a variety of authors), popular magazines, and, perhaps the richest trove to be mined, literary journals. As the fastest and smartest reader I have ever known, she looks at somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 stories a year, largely to determine if they are mysteries (you can’t tell a story by its title) and then to determine if they are worth serious consideration. I then read the harvested crop, passing along the best fifty (or at least those I liked best) to the guest editor, who selects the twenty that are then reprinted, the other thirty being listed in an honor roll as “Other Distinguished Mystery Stories.”

A word of thanks is more than appropriate for the previous eighteen guest editors (listed at the front of the book), who gave so much of their time and energy to help make this such a distinguished and successful series.

The search has already begun for suitable stories for next year’s edition. To qualify, a story must be—duh—a mystery, must be written by an American or a Canadian, and must have had its first publication in the calendar year 2015 in an American or Canadian publication. If you are the author of such a work, or its editor, or any interested party (your credentials will not be reviewed), please feel free to submit it. Every word of
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
, and
The Strand
is read, so there’s no need to waste postage on sending a story from them. If the story was first published online, only hard copies will be read; these must include the name of the e-zine, the date on which it was published, and contact information. No unpublished stories are eligible, for what should be obvious reasons. Submitted material will not be returned. If you do not trust the U.S. Postal Service to deliver the book, magazine, or tearsheets, please enclose a self-addressed postcard to receive confirmation.

The earlier submissions are received, the less hurriedly will they be read. Please send submissions to Otto Penzler, The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. If your story is one of the fifty or sixty or more customarily delivered by thoughtless dunderheads during Christmas week, it may not receive quite the same respectful reading as those submitted in less crowded months. If the story is published during the last week of the year, okay, fair enough. But if it was published in the spring and you just got around to sending it, I will view it as a personal affront and an attempt to ruin my Christmas celebrations; you will have had to write an extraordinary story for me to forgive you. Because of the unforgiving deadlines necessarily imposed on a work of this nature, the absolute final date for receiving material is December 31. This is neither an arrogant nor a whimsical decision, but is essential in order for production schedules to be met. If it arrives on January 2, it will not be read. Yes, really.

O.P.

A
FEW YEARS
ago, I dug up some short stories to share with my son, Jack. I got him the world’s greatest (and funniest) story of workplace dysfunction, “The Catbird Seat” by James Thurber. I dusted off the classic that some say inspired
The Hunger Games
—“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. I got him the not terribly short but unforgettable Hemingway classic, “The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” I passed him the heartbreaking “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury. And several others.

They included laugh-out-louders, cry-in-your-handers, heart-in-your-throaters, and shake-your-fist-at-the-worlders. All, to my mind, were profound and provocative. It’s no wonder these stories have endured through the years. Each one manages to say something more profound and provocative in a few pages than some novels manage to say over the course of several hundred pages.

These days, Americans tend to think about short stories in a, well, shortsighted way. How many short stories can the average person name off the top of his head? Probably a few here and there by Edgar Allan Poe, sure. But how about ones that were written in the last year? The last five years? The last ten? I think you’d be hard-pressed to find even a handful of people who could do it.

It’s a simple fact of modern life that short stories are not very popular. Which is bizarre when one considers what one hears about our attention spans. My personal theory is not that they don’t work for us any longer but rather that we (except when we’re trying to inspire our kids with the things that inspired us when we were their age) have largely forgotten about them. And, perhaps, that they haven’t been very well published lately, given the changes in the magazine world.

The short story is also one of the most fertile mediums for adaptations. Movies, TV shows, and plays are often adapted from short stories, and it’s not hard to see why. With such a limited amount of space, authors bring to life a world created through the painstaking selection of every single word, leaving a lasting, highly visual impression in the minds of readers.

Think of some iconic films, ones that have made a cultural impact in our world—
The Birds
,
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Brokeback Mountain
,
The Shawshank Redemption, Minority Report, Million Dollar Baby.
Did you know they were based on short stories? Does the typical moviegoing American know? People love short stories, and often they don’t even realize it.

When I think about the batch of short stories you’re about to read, it makes me wish more people would read these imaginative, rich, complex tales before (if?) they get the big-screen treatment. I often hear people lamenting the state of Hollywood, how they’re hungry for original, dynamic, surprising stories rather than another middling popcorn one. If that’s the case, I’ve got one thing to say: read these short stories. You can thank me later.

One such story, “Molly’s Plan” by John M. Floyd, details the formation and execution of a bank heist so real and intense that I find it impossible to believe the tale took up only a few pages. “Branch manager Donald Ramsey was fond of saying that no one on earth was brave enough or foolish enough to attempt to rob his bank. He was mistaken,” writes Floyd. And just a few paragraphs later? Not to give too much away, but we learn that to get people to follow a bank robber’s instructions, “A little blood is a fantastic incentive . . .” An imaginative twist at the end of the story makes it a truly satisfying read.

Jeffery Deaver’s “The Adventure of the Laughing Fisherman” delivers a walloping blow to the head with its big number of unexpected turns. A modern send-up of Sherlock Holmes, the story introduces us to Paul Winslow, whose affinity with the famous sleuth isn’t quite what it seems. I was so enamored with the originality and creativity of this story that by the time I read the last word, I found myself cursing the format of the short story, because I wanted to read so much more about this imaginative character Deaver has created. This one could easily be a major Hollywood franchise.

Another of the things I love about short stories is how they can make fresh voices accessible to readers. I’d bet people are more willing to read a few pages of a short story by an unknown author than they are to read an entire book. Take “Rosalee Carrasco” by Tomiko M. Breland, an up-and-coming writer whose fiction placed in the 2014 Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Contest. This story about a high school tragedy blew me away with its simplicity and power. As you’ll soon discover, it’s what Breland chooses
not
to say that packs the biggest punch.

There are also glimpses into the lives of intriguing characters, as is the case with Kyle Minor’s “A Kidnapping in Koulèv-Ville” and Lee Martin’s “A Man Looking for Trouble.” The former examines the choices of a privileged young woman living in Haiti, while the latter explores the devastating effects of infidelity and war on a small-town family. These are unfamiliar characters living through very familiar circumstances. The reader is innately drawn in—who didn’t rebel against their parents during those wonderfully arrogant teenage years of life? And what person hasn’t had the realization that their parents, once so heroic and infallible in their childhood eyes, are just normal people perfectly capable of making their own bad choices? “That night, I couldn’t say I loved my mother, or Bill, or my father, who had gone without saying a word to me,” writes Martin. “I could only say that I felt sorry for them—sorry for all the trouble they’d found—and I felt sorry for Connie, who didn’t deserve to be on the other side of that trouble. It would be a while before I’d be able to say that I didn’t deserve it either.” These stories offer real, poignant portraits without ever veering into the maudlin or melodramatic.

I’m confident that you’ll enjoy reading these stories (and so will Jack), and I have no doubt we’ll be seeing a few of them adapted for the big screen in years to come. Of course, it would be nice for as many people as possible to read these stories before that happens, but there’s a bright side to Hollywood’s hunger for short stories. It means that as long as authors keep writing with such vividness and ingenuity, we’ll reap the benefits of having fantastic stories available to us both on screen and on paper.

J
AMES
P
ATTERSON

DOUG ALLYN

FROM
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

I
SMILED WHEN
I saw the dead girl. Just for a moment. Reflex, I suppose.

In Kabul, I once clawed through a busload of bodies after a bomb blast, desperately seeking any sign of life. Didn’t find it.

As a Detroit cop, I saw victims almost daily, and even after transferring home to Valhalla, on Michigan’s North Shore, I’ve seen more corpses than I care to.

But never one like this.

The teenager was sprawled on the snow-covered lawn, her honey-blond hair wreathing her face like a halo. She was surrounded by lighted holiday figures, a laughing Santa in his sleigh, eight wire-framed reindeer, gaily winking and blinking. The girl’s white satin gown was dusted with ice crystals that reflected the flickering LEDs, making her glitter like the display’s centerpiece.

A snow angel.

The scene was so perfect, it almost looked posed, like the girl had dozed off in the middle of a photo shoot for a Hallmark card.

She hadn’t, though.

Her face and lips were a pale pastel blue, her brows and lashes rimed with frost.

In her last moments, she’d thrashed about, striving to rise. To live. But the bone-deep cold sapped her strength. She slipped into an icy coma and then away, leaving her body centered in the image her struggles had created.

A perfect snow angel.

And at first glance, I couldn’t help smiling. Instinctively reacting to the scene. Who doesn’t love a snow angel?

My partner, Zina Redfern, caught my smile and gave me an odd look. I turned away, trying to morph my grin into a wince. I doubt she bought it. Zina is short, squared-off, and intense. All business. Raven-haired, with dark eyes and a copper complexion, she favors Johnny Cash black on the job. Slacks, boots, and nylon jackets. If she owns a dress, I’ve never seen it. Her heritage is First Nation. Anishnabeg. But she’s a sidewalk Indian, grew up tough in Flint’s east-side gangland. She’s a solid partner, but not an easy read.

“Who called this in?” I asked.

“Mail lady,” Zina said. “She dropped a package at the house around eight this morning. Spotted the girl on her way in, took a closer look on the way out. Called 911. Van Duzen caught the squeal, found the girl. He pounded on the front door but nobody answered. He thought he’d better wait for us. Mail lady didn’t know anything, so he sent her on her way.”

“Okay.” I nodded, then I turned in a slow circle, scanning the crime scene.

We were in Sugar Hill, the richest enclave in Valhalla. Homes here don’t have addresses, they have names. This one, Champlin Hall, was an honest-to-God nineteenth-century mansion. A sprawling brick Beaux Arts estate with ornate stonework, towering Gothic windows.

Built by one of the old lumber barons, the estate had been updated over the years. The carriage house became a six-car garage, servants’ quarters now housed exchange students from the Sudan, Serbia, or Ontario, depending on which sports they specialized in.

A half-dozen cars were parked in the circular drive, all of them dusted lightly by last night’s snowfall. No one had come or gone. The only fresh tire tracks were from the mail truck, my Jeep, and Van Duzen’s prowlie, still idling in the driveway, its exhaust rising white in the icy air.