The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025 is a well curated anthology curated and edited by Don Winslow. Released 21st Oct 2025 by HarperCollins on their Mariner imprint, it's 384 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links.
There are 20 stories by my count and they're from authors both familiar and new. The stories are varied, there were (as always) some which didn't grab me personally, but all were well written and competently plotted. They were mostly in the 3.5-4 star range. This is a well done anthology, though the selection criteria are obscured enough that not all of the choices could really be properly called mystery or suspense.
One
reason I like collections
and anthologies is that short fiction is really challenging. It's spare
and the author doesn't have a wealth of wordage to develop characters
or the plotting. Well written short fiction is a delight. I also love
collections because if one story doesn't really grab me, there's another
story just a few pages away. The guest editor for this volume provides a
well written intro and commentary and, as always, the background
comments are interesting and informative. I enjoyed and used the
honorable mention lists included in the volume for even more good
recommendations for further reading. The honorable mentions list at the back of the book is a worthwhile resource.
Four
stars on average. It's a diverting and worthwhile read to be savored
like a box of chocolates. This would make a good selection for public
library acquisition as well as for home readers looking for a solid
anthology of stories which will also likely serve as an introduction to
lots of new authors to search out.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment