July 8, 2015

Book 33: The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

The Best American Mystery Stories 2014
Edited by Laura Lippman

Given its consistent high quality, it's almost easy to forget just how good the stories in the annual Best American volumes actually are, even when their relative quality dips for a year or two. Though the 2014 iteration of The Best American Mystery Stories has its fair share of disappointments, including a general sense of unevenness and a potentially poignant absence of actual mystery stories, it does offer a solid selection of excellent crime-centric fiction. The collection's most striking feature, perhaps, is its aforementioned lack of procedurals and, with them, tales that rely on the procurement and decoding of clues, red herrings, and tidy solutions. Even the closest example, Nancy Pauline Simpson's "Festered Wounds", is more of a period piece with a gotcha ending than a proper narrative of detection. Like the other stories in this volume, it is concerned more with philosophical explorations of the myriad causes and effects of crime and criminality than with the particulars of a given event.

This is not, however, to say that these stories do not traffic in suspense, twists, or other traditional genre staples. Joseph Heller's "Almost Like Christmas" and Patricia Engel's "Aida" effectively establish and exquisitely exploit dramatic tension with nearly every word; similarly, Jim Allyn's "Princess Anne" provides a twist ending that is surprising and inevitable in equal measure. Charlaine Harris's "Small Kingdoms", a fun thriller with a wicked sense of ironic, dry humor, may be the collection's most pleasant surprise, coming as it does from an author associated heavily with quite another topic indeed. Most of the contributors do pay tribute, however subtle or unspoken, to the tropes and tricks of more traditional mysteries; these allusions are rendered in different shades of subtlety to varying degrees of success. Likewise, the lofty literary ambitions that are on full display in nearly every story are about as hit-and-miss as they are in less genre-inclined environments. While some authors are able to harness the raw power and indescribable beauty of a perfectly selected turn of phrase, others spend too much time mired in a search for meaning and theme and thus pay too little attention to the intricate details of characterization and plot that ultimately determine the success or failure of any given story- mystery or not. I often found myself craving more action- a criticism that would absolutely apply if I were merely expecting good stories without any preconceived expectations of content.

As refreshing as it is to see an anthology that rewards authors for exploring the literary possibilities of genre fiction, it may be a bit of a stretch to present this collection as a group of excellent mystery stories; rather, it collects excellent stories that deal, however tangentially, with crime. The distinction may seem trivial, but as this series comes ever closer to its parent it may prove to be a distinction well worth considering. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to note that, though they may not be the types of tales expected of such a volume, many of these stories could easily go toe-to-toe with other fiction, in any genre, for sheer quality; despite my qualms about the title's (in)accuracy, the fact that the distinction between the best short fiction and the best short mystery fiction grows increasingly ambiguous every year is, to my mind, a positive development that I hope to see resonate across other oft-maligned literary niches. Insofar as it does contain a selection of stories that revolve around crime and criminality, The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 is a satisfying book, though it may not quite deliver on the promise of its title in conventional ways.


Grade: B+

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