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The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 (Paperback)

The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 Cover Image
By Lee Child (Editor), Otto Penzler (Editor)
$16.95
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Description


A Wall Street Journal holiday 2021 pick


Suspense Magazine Best Book of the Year


Lee Child selects the twenty best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Stephen King, Sara Paretsky, and many more.


Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international bestseller Lee Child has selected the twenty most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.


Includes stories by:



  • Alison Gaylin

  • David Morrell

  • James Lee Burke

  • Joyce Carol Oates

  • Martin Edwards

  • Sara Paretsky

  • Stephen King

  • Sue Grafton (with a new, posthumously-published work!)


And many more!  



About the Author


Lee Child was born on October 29, 1954, in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that JRR Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV’s “golden age.” During his tenure his company made Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. But he was fired in 1995 at the age of forty as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars’ worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series.

Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of The Mysterious Press (1975); MysteriousPress.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from NoirCon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 70 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.

Praise For…


The 20 entries in this superior anthology exhibit the storytelling gifts of authors both familiar and not [...] This volume is a must for mystery aficionados.
— Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

20 gems […] Child’s selections seem especially appropriate for 2021, a year that promises change on so many fronts.
— Kirkus STARRED REVIEW

There is such a wide variety here, in terms of literary style and subject matter, that it’s hard to imagine a genre fan who would not find something to treasure. The book belongs on the shelf next to such essential anthologies as the Best American Mystery Stories series and Akashic Books’ voluminous Noir series.
— Booklist

A delicious mix of style and subgenre—there isn’t a weak link in the bunch.
— Library Journal

It’s no stretch to say these were some of the best short stories from 2020, and the collection is sure to have something for everyone—from those who like traditional mysteries to those who like thrillers or noir stories.
— Reviewing the Evidence

While a best mystery stories volume can be expected to include many quality works, the editors for this particular piece have outdone themselves. The quality and variety in this collection mean that any reader should find something to enjoy if they appreciate mystery or crime at all. Murder, theft, classic detective and no detective all fit within the short but entertaining volume. Heartily recommended.
— A Green Man Review

Product Details
ISBN: 9781613162385
ISBN-10: 1613162383
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Publication Date: September 14th, 2021
Pages: 451
Language: English
Series: Best Mystery Stories