I recommend anthologies and books of short stories on a regular basis. So many readers ask for recommendations of series and authors that the easiest way for them to discover new to them authors is to sample their writing in these books. This book contains 20 stories by some of the best authors in publishing today plus those up and coming with skills that shine. As they flex their writing skills to give readers a complete story in fewer pages than a typical chapter, you'll find many to add to your TBR pile.

This well-chosen selection of modern mystery short fiction is an opportunity to see what favorite novelists do with a different format, but it’s also a good introduction to unfamiliar writers. You can’t expect to like every story in an anthology (a network of mothers who work in an execution business, really?), but there’s plenty to enjoy here, with more hits than misses. Luckily the nature of short stories is that the misses are over quickly, letting you get on to discovering the next author you might want to follow in longer form. Congratulations to the editor on a well-curated and diverse collection.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penzler Publishers for a digital advance review copy.

The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022 was a solid collection. I liked the description in the introduction of what was included:
"..I define mystery very liberally as any work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or the plot. This allows me to embrace detective stories (which is the first kind of mystery that comes to mind for many people), thrillers, crime fiction, and suspense."

And the stories included in this collection really covered a wide range of types as well as a combination of well known authors and some I wasn't familiar with before reading these stories. Most also included a note about where the author got the inspiration for the story which I thought was a nice addition. Some stories weren't a hit for me but that's the fun of a collection - just move along to the next! Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy to review.

This collection of mystery short stories, curated by Sara Paretsky and Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, is a must-read for fans of the genre. The selection includes tales by some of the biggest names in mystery fiction, including Michael Connelly, Jo Nesbo, Joyce Carol Oates, and Colson Whitehead, as well as exciting new voices like Doug Allyn, Colin Barrett, and Susan Frith.

Under the auspices of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, Paretsky has carefully chosen the twenty most puzzling, thrilling, and mysterious stories of the past year. With a wide range of styles and voices, this collection has something for every mystery fan. From Tom Larsen's gripping tale of a man on the run to Annie Reed's twisty mystery of a woman's disappearance, these stories will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Overall, this collection is a must-read for fans of mystery fiction. With a mix of well-known authors and exciting new voices, it offers something for everyone and is sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats.

The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022 is a really well curated anthology of short crime fiction edited by Otto Penzler. Released 13th Sept 2022 by W.W. Norton on their Penzler Press imprint, it's an impressive 500 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

This is a well rounded collection of top shelf fiction from big name authors who will probably already be familiar to most mystery fans. The stories are all reprinted here, and were originally published in well known magazines, including Harper's, Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, New Yorker and other similarly august periodicals. They run the gamut from serious to lightly witty, but all are very well written by professionals who know what they're doing. Even the introduction managed to raise a smile when Crime Queen Sara Paretsky retells a story from a dinner party in her past where an appalled therapist who apparently had no idea who she was diagnosed her as having worrying tendencies and suggested she seek out professional help.

I enjoy anthologies very much. They're palate cleansers. They reset the reading mojo and if one story doesn't engage the reader, there's always another one to come along in a few pages. Short fiction is challenging in and of itself as well. Especially in crime fiction which has the intricacies of plot devices, clues, and a solution, getting all that to fit into fewer than 10,000 words is a monumental task. I like seeing how adept authors can be with fitting all the nuts and bolts under the hood, so to speak.

This is a good anthology. All of the stories are good, several are really really good. Additionally, as with nearly all of Mr. Penzler's published anthologies, his story introductions are well written and worth reading on their own merit. They're shorter and more pithy in this collection compared to previous anthologies, but still worth a look.

Four and a half stars. This is a relevant, engaging bunch of stories. Good choice for gift giving, library acquisition, and travel reading.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Princess Fuzzypants here: I am fond of anthologies. I like books filled with short stories that the reader can dip in and out of at will. This one is chock full of stories by famous authors and with a selection of mysteries that will satisfy any number of tastes. There are some that have a whimsical side. There are some that are deeply dark. They are all well written and entertaining.

If you are a fan of modern mysteries and would like a sampler of various styles and tastes, this is an excellent way to find new favourites or revisit old ones. Four purrs and two paws up.

This anthology has some of the best short story writers included and many I had never read yet. Now I can't wait to see what else is available from all of them. The stories are edgy and some very dark, but all are worth reading.

I really enjoyed this anthology of mystery short stories. For 2022, selection and editing was by Sara Paretsky and Otto Penzler.

I thought there was a lot of variety in the stories, not only in the topics but authors. While there were several well-known authors, many of the writers were not known to me and I really appreciated the exposure to these new-to-me authors. Due to reading this anthology, I now have multiple authors I'm planning to further explore. The writing kept me engaged and I found myself wanting more when I reached the end of the book.

Thank you to the authors, publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC. In return, this is my honest review and all opinions are mine.

The Best Mystery Stories of the Year, edited by Sara Paretsky is an anthology of short stories

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Penzler Publishers, Mysterious Press and of course the authors, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis and Opinions:  
The legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and with a forward by both Otto Penzler (who has been doing this type of thing for many years) and best-selling author Sara Paretsky (this year's guest editor), have selected the best short stories of 2022 -- although the year isn't over?

As always, I am providing my brief synopsis/opinion of each story, and rating them as per my normal criteria.  I've added their nationality, and was surprised at the number of Americans. The stories are:


Kiss of Life by Doug Allyn (American)  ... The mob, a gambler, a woman trying to save her marriage, and the daughter from hell....none of my favorite topics, and much too long. 1 star

A Shooting in Rathreedane by Colin Barrett (Irish) ... A man is shot while trying to steal oil in the middle of the summer.  It was okay, but nothing special. 2 stars

White Chocolate by Jerome Charyn (American) ... A lawyer has a mother who runs the town, but when she steals her own grandson, he is the only one to stand up to her.  Loved the writing and the plot.  Lots of fun!  5 stars

Avalon by Michael Connelly (American) ... A stranger arrives on a small island with murder on his mind.  Great writing.  Short and sweet.  4 stars

Better Austens by Susan Frith (American)  ... A group of mothers, who are also executioners, are part of a book club.  This was a really unique story, just great! 5 stars

El Cuerpo en el Barril by Tom Larsen (American) ... Corruption in Equador.  Didn't like the topic, or the characters.  The writing was fine.  1 star

October in Kauai by Sean Marciniak (American)  ...  A young man with a corrupt and abusive father decides to start making his own choices.  Really entertaining.  4 stars

Gun Running on Vacation by Stefon Mears (American) ... Two friends decide to head to Mexico for vacation, but one of them gambles away all their money.  This was quite good.  3 stars

Sleigh Bells for the Hayride by Keith Lee Morris (American) ... A young man encounters a deaf woman when he agrees to drop off heroine for an acquaintance.  Well, I have no understanding of the title, but the story was okay.  3 stars

Violent Devotion by Gwen Mullins (American) ... A missing girl causes another father to worry about his son.  This was really good.  5 stars

Black Knight by Jo Nesbo (Norwegian) ... In a time when contract killers were the norm, sometimes the best chess player wins.  Absolutely loved the characters and plot, and although a little long, it was great!  5 stars

Detour by Joyce Carol Oates (American) ... A woman who encounters a detour has her world turned upside down.  Good, but not sure I would classify this as a mystery...more horror. 4 stars

Little City Blues by Annie Reed (American) ... A private eye accepts a client who thinks his wife is cheating on him, but discovers there is much more going on.  Quite good. 4 stars

Grief Span Kristine  Kathryn Rusch (American) ... A woman is grieving the loss of her husband, but discovers he was not as he seemed.  This was was unexpected, and great!  5 stars

A Heaven or a Hell by Anna Scotti (American) ...  A lawyer adopts two boys who are responsible for his brothers death, but they don't all survive a fall off a cliff.  Really interesting, and apparently part of a series with the Librarian solving crimes.  5 stars

Bang on the Money by Ginny Swart (South Africa) ... An assassin is conned.  The story was short and to the point. 3 stars

The Influencer by Ellen Tremiti (American) ... A detective who wants to retire is handed a missing persons case.  This was really good!  5 stars

Give or Take a Quarter Inch by Joseph S. Walker (American) ... A retired professional baseball pitcher is forced out of retirement.  Short and sweet! 4 stars

The Theresa Job by Colson Whitehead (American) ... Two cousins get involved in a big heist.  Neither the topic nor the writing appealed to me.  2 stars

Where There's Love by Michael Wiley (American) ... A jeweler hires security for his diamonds, but diamonds are a girls best friend.  Rather comical.  Just okay.  2 stars

A Jury of her Peers by Susan Glaspell (American) ... Written over a century ago, this was a bonus story, set in a time where little respect was given to women. A man is found hung, and his wife taken into custody.  It started a little slow, but was quite good.  4 stars


Okay, in conclusion, the forwards were too long.  All the information about each author prior to their story were also too long in most cases.  The reader is here to read the stories!  We don't really care how many awards the author has won, or where they studied writing....that is fine for an entire book by the author, but these are supposedly short stories and they take forever to get to....and then after you read the story, the author tells why they wrote it.  While all this is entertaining, it makes the book really long.

Remember, these are only my opinions - we may like/dislike different stories - it would be a boring world if we all liked the same thing.  But I felt there were a lot of 4 and 5 star stories in this collection, and I was entertained.  That's what it's all about!

The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022 edited by Sara Paretsky.

BLURB: "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 and MWA Grandmaster Sara Paretsky has selected the twenty most puzzling, most thrilling, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume ... including tales by Michael Connelly, Jo Nesbo, Joyce Carol Oates, Colson Whitehead, and more!"

Mysterious Bookshop proprietor Otto Penzler begins this volume with a brief explanation of the process that goes into picking these stories and explains his VERY broad definition of what constitutes a "mystery" for purposes of this anthology (basically, anything in which a crime, or threat of a crime is central to the theme or plot of the story).

Then Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski series, gives the introduction to this collection of twenty-one* short stories (Paretsky's anecdote about her table mate at a dinner party is priceless).

Each story is introduced with a brief bio of the author and book-ended by the individual author's comments about what inspired them to write it. The inhabitants of these pages are a large mishmash of heroic, bizarre, devious, benign, and tragic characters, including: Several lawyers, an ex-professional athlete, some troubled teens, mothers who abet executions, and a variety of detectives - police, private, amateur, and accidental. The criminals, as well as the heroes, come in all shapes, sizes, and temperaments.

There are good guys (and gals), bad guys, bad good guys, good bad guys, semi-innocent bystanders, and more than a few protagonists who operate in a decidedly gray area. There's also one story that is at the extreme edge of the genre with something of a Twilight Zone flavor to it. Plus a bonus story* originally published in 1917 that offers a look back at a simpler era (or was it?) when society had very specific roles and everyone was expected to play their part accordingly.

I've given the rating a lot of thought. I give this collection 4 1/2 stars. I just can't see my way clear to bumping it up that extra step to 5-stars, as I most generally would. The quality of the majority is so high that the two or three that were less than perfect really stand out. In those instances, instead of being at the edge of my seat wondering where they were ultimately going, I was wondering how much longer it would be before they were over... They just weren't up to par (in my opinion, obviously). Again, this is a critique that focuses on the exceptional content and my own personal taste. In any other collection those same stories would possibly be the standouts -but not here.

Bottom line: You can't go wrong with this collection. With a reputation that goes back to the late 1970s, when the original location first opened its doors, The Mysterious Bookshop (with proprietor Otto Penzler) is the absolute best source for crime fiction of all kinds!
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***NOTE: Some of the stories in this anthology contain language and situations that might be offensive to more sensitive readers: cursing (including "F-bombs"), violent imagery, racial slurs, and sexual innuendo. For the most part those instances are a minor part of the overall content but I like to let folks know it's there.

Excellent selection of short stories. Every story was enjoyable. A couple of authors I was familiar with and I found one new author that I am going to start reading her book series.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mysterious Press for an advanced reader copy.

Still reading, but want to commend the editors for whip smart stories! What a gem for mystery readers.

This eclectic collection of mystery short stories is diverse in authorship and genre. Some are definitely more "traditional" mystery, some are police procedural, while others feel more speculative. I read almost exclusively mystery (novels) and was surprised to see how broad the genre was interpreted in this collection. There were some stories I very much enjoyed, and others that I didn't like and DNF'd, but that's to be expected when reading a book like this.

This is a great way to dip your toes into mystery short stories, and I'd rec this collection to anyone hoping to broaden their view of mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penzler Publishers, & the Mysterious Press for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Mysterious Bookshop contains twenty of the best mystery short stories for 2022 (plus a bonus), culled by editor Sara Paretsky and Otto Penzler, editor of the Mysterious Bookshop and founder of The Mysterious Press. Though my preference is Golden Age mysteries, this book was a varied and interesting read and I learned about a few new-to-me authors. The stories did not all feel like mysteries to me but in the beginning Penzler was clear about his encompassing definition of "mystery",

My favourites include Doug Allyn's Kiss of Life, especially the ending. Better Austens by Susan Frith is about a book club with a rather macabre slant. In Violent Devotion by Gwen Mullins blood is always thicker than water...or is it? The story I enjoyed the most is suspenseful Detour by Carol Oates in which a detour sign changes everything. After an accident Abigail views her husband differently. It reminds me of a favourite Golden Age author of mine, Ursula Curtiss. In Grief Spam author Kristine Kathryn Rusch powerfully describes acute grief. She and her daughters are at the receiving end of spam. Things are not what they first seem. Susan Glaspell's A Jury of Her Peers is a fascinating tale in which a bird and a quilt have roles to play.

Short story readers (or even those who are not) ought to read this compendium, dabbling here and there as you wish. Some of the stories are more believable than others, hence fiction, but I read them for sheer enjoyment without seeking deeper meaning. I do like surprise endings and cliffhangers and several fit the bill. A few of the stories in my view are superb but others lack je ne sais quois and left me disappointed.

My sincere thank you to Sara Paretsky, Penzler Publishers and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this motley collection.

THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP PRESENTS THE BEST MYSTERY STORIES OF THE YEAR 2022 edited by Sara Paretsky (author of the bestselling V.I. Warshawski series) contains roughly five hundred pages with selections by renowned authors Including Michael Connelly, Jo Nesbo, Joyce Carol Oates, and Colson Whitehead. Similar collections are published annually, but I felt as though these selections were more stories than mysteries. Yes, they were very well-written and there were surprises and twists, but the focus seemed more psychological than action adventure. The first story, "Kiss of Life" (by Doug Allyn) lasts for over forty pages and essentially circles back to its beginning. "White Chocolate" (by Jerome Charyn) and "Sleigh Bells for the Hayride" (by Keith Lee Morris) both sound appealing, but the characters (including a woman who kidnaps her own grandchild) were not. There are notes at the beginning and end of each story about the author's background and creative process, but (in the preview at least) they blend together and that distracts from the reading enjoyment. Again, certainly well-written contributions, but overall not as diverting or entertaining as I had expected.

The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022 is a roller coaster ride for the reader as some of the stories selected are very good and highly entertaining. Others, not so much. The digital arc via NetGalley that I received also had a very high number of formatting issues that got steadily worse as I worked my way through the read. That problem, far worse than most digital ARCs I get via NetGalley and elsewhere, certainly did not help with reading enjoyment

As the foreword by Otto Penzler makes abundantly clear, the tales that appear in the book are primarily his choices. Michele Slung culls the stories that are believed to have no chance as well as the nonmysteries, then the remaining pile of several hundred is read by Mr. Penzler. He culls that pile to fewer than fifty tales and turns that batch over to the guest editor. In this case, noted author Sara Paretsky, who selected the final twenty stories that are included in this anthology. Mr. Penzler goes on in his foreword to explain that his definition of a mystery is wide and includes thrillers, crime fiction, and suspense as well.

After some more remarks, including how to be considered for next year, Sara Paretsky comes next with her introduction. She addresses the old axiom of “write what you know” and spins it to how those who are good at writing know emotions. Everything else is research. She also points out that language as well as reader perception of authors and stories changes over time as does the world they inhibit and the tales that come from that world.

Then it is finally on to the stories. There are twenty short stories in the book, split evenly between men and women. Each story has a short background explanation to how it came to be and there is a short author bio as well. The stories in the book are arranged by author’s last name.

That means Doug Allyn gets the ball rolling with “Kiss Of Life.” Attorney Ray Beaumont is at the beach on Lake Michigan enjoying the mid July day with his lady friend, Marcy. They soon realize something is wrong as a woman nearby has walked out into the water and is apparently attempting to commit suicide. Ray pulls her out of the water, performs CPR, and is soon at the local hospital dealing with the strange situation his latest client finds herself in as she is still very much among the living.

Colin Barrett’s “A Shooting In Rathreedane” follows where Sergeant Jackie Noonan and the young officer, Pronsius Swift, are called out for a shooting at Bertie Creedon’s place. He has reported the shooting at his farm and claims he was trying to warn the person off as he was in fear of his life. But, instead of missing him, the warning shot hit him and the intruder is a bad way. Swift and Noonan go out to assist and investigate.

White Chocolate by Jerome Charyn is a tale of small-town life where nearly everyone is related to each other. For a local attorney, that includes his mother who apparently just stole a child from the local hospital. While his mom may run the town and everyone in it, she may have gone too far this time, even with a lawyer in the family.

There may be a killer on Catalina. L. A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Nick Searcy saw the guy come off the ferry and wondered about him as the man seemed to be suspicious. After a conversation with FBI Agent Alex Cohen, Searcy thinks he might be the target and thinks it might be because of a trial starting in a few days. Things get complicated fast in “Avalon” by Michael Connelly.

It is a book club with a twist in “Better Austens” by Susan Firth. The ladies do read books as part of their book club. That is not all they do in a not-too-distant future where executions are privatized. This group of mothers provides the executions in the local area and do it while showing compassion to the legally condemned. A hard job becomes way harder when she realizes she knows the man she is supposed to execute from back when he was a little child playing with her own son.
Tom Larsen takes readers to Manta, Ecuador, in “El Cuerpo En El Barril where Sergeant Orlando Ortega has a new boss. Captain Juan Delgado is a big man and is not happy to be here in Manta where, as befits a coastal city, there is more than ample heat and humidity. Sergeant Delgado is not one to play politics, take small bribes, or go along to get along which is why he has been made the problem of another commander who is now stuck with him. Delgado is good at closing cases and soon will be working the case of a death near the local church.

The plan was to run away to Hawaii. Now, all the money they had in Bitcoin is gone in “October In Kauai” by Sean Marciniak. 15 and being abused by his cop dad, the money was a way out of a hellish life for him as well as Kayla and a friend of theirs. With the money gone, it is time for a new and far more dangerous plan.
Derek has done it. Again. Not something minor league stupid as he has frequently done before, but this time, something major league stupid. The money was supposed to last them for their stay down in Baja. Instead, all of the money, every last cent, is gone. Not only did Derek lose it all by gambling, he put them both in a bad situation as “Gun Running On Vacation” by Stefon Mears begins.

It was supposed to be an easy drug transaction a “Sleigh Bells For The Hayride” by Keith Lee Morris begins. He was waiting in the breezeway of some crappy condo complex courtyard. Good thing he knowns sign language even though he has been out of practice using it as the woman who was supposed to pay him for the drugs is deaf. She also does not seem to really want the drugs. She has a problem and a plan. He needs the money, so the drug sale is going to have to wait.

Red McClendon has not been facing the truth about his own son for a long time now. After all, on the surface, it appears that they are a perfect family. Not everything is as it appears in “Violent Devotion” by Gwen Mullins.
Dr. Meyer is well known for his hypnotism skills. He is not known for his secondary job in “Black Knight” by Jo Nesbo. That secondary job is soon ongoing to bring unwanted attention and a clear threat. While everything appears normal in the busy city of Milan, he is being toyed with in an elaborate game that befits his acknowledged skill in his secondary occupation.

When you are very used to taking one road from here to there the usual way all the time, a detour can cause all sorts of issues. It could also get you killed in “Detour” by Joyce Carol Oates. Abigail isn’t feeling herself this mid-March afternoon as it was before she arrived at the unwelcome sign. Being forced out of her normal way home will take her many miles out of her way and will take a lot of time, thus disrupting her normal routine as she savors the time when she is home alone after work and her husband is yet to arrive.

Bill Claymore wants the private investigator to follow his unfaithful wife in “Little City Blues” by Annie Reed. The private investigator may be home from Vietnam, but the war and what he went through in that hell is never far from his thoughts. He is willing to tail her and see what is going on as long as he gets paid. That does not mean he will do every single thing Claymore wants.

The next short story hit me pretty hard though my circumstances were quite a bit different. When a spouse passes, a lot of horrible people reach out to express their condolences and to try to take advantage of the death in one way or another. Most of mine were from women who claimed that Sandi had sent them my way as one of her last acts online or in person, which was obviously impossible, or others who wanted to personally help me with my grief according to their messages that included pictures of them naked or nearly naked.
Some just needed plane ticket money. Some claimed to have messages from Sandi so I had to prove who I was by divulging some personal information. Nearly five years later now, it rarely happens by email. Instead, now and at a far lower rate, it happens via Twitter. One hopes that if there is a heaven and a hell, that such people have a front row seat in the hot zone.

In “Grief Spam” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, a widow has been devasted by her husband’s death. Now, just over two weeks later, she and others are receiving messages that seem to indicate Rob was doing and saying horrible things before he died in the single car crash. Lucca Kwindale has a private investigator company, Kwindale Investigations, and soon has a new mission and a compelling reason to get up and out of bed in the morning. Find out if Rob, the schoolteacher and the man she married and the father of their three daughters, was the man she though he was or if he was a scumbag and quite possibly even a criminal?

Paul Gates and his brother, Tristan, had been thought to be dead after the report by Kevin Delman. Mr. Delman had been lucky to survive the fall off the beach cliff several days ago. Authorities had found no trace of the boys and it was believed they had died and been taken out to sea. Now, four days after the accident, Tristian has pulled himself back up the cliff at a point a considerable distance from where he reportedly went over, and has been taken to a nearby hospital in “A Heaven Or A Hell” by Anna Scotti. The background of the situation with the boys and what really happened are major plot points in this complex tale.

The man is known as Marrick at the hotel in Singapore where he is staying. He gets a message to go to a certain locker at the airport in “Bang On The Money” by Ginny Stuart. He recovers the stored suitcase and changes his clothes and does quite a lot more as his latest job is underway.

Carol Clarke has a lot going on as “The Influencer” by Ellen Tremiti begins. Part of that is her job as a Detective. She isn’t really ready to retire, but her daughter and the grandbaby need her. She also has one last case to work as a favor to her boss. A missing person’s case that is hers because the mother of the missing young lady goes to her boss’s church.

After three weeks on the road doing his job, Ryan Vargas expected his wife in the house and waiting for him. She isn’t. Minutes after he arrives home, he gets a picture on his cellphone making it clear his wife is elsewhere and not by choice. Why she was taken and how he is going to get her back are two major pieces of “Give Or Take A Quarter Inch” by Joseph S. Walker.

It is an early taste of the blazing heat of summer in the neighborhood surrounding the bar known as Nightbirds when Ray Carney arrives. He certainly had no desire to be there as “The Theresa Job” by Colson Whitehead begins, but Freddie wanted to talk to him. Freddie knows about a job. Miami Joe is involved, as is a safe, and his cousin Freddie has been throwing his name around. So now, Ray Carrey is involved even though he wants no part of it.

Sam Kelson and DeMarcus Rodman have had a quiet night in where things in “Where There’s Love” by Michael Wiley. That is when Kelson was not talking as he pretty much talks nonstop these days. Especially when he is nervous. They knew there was something fishy about the overnight security job in the jewelry store. They might soon find out exactly what the deal is as they are no longer alone.

A “Bonus Story” titled “Jury Of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell brings the short stories to a close. In this short story, Mrs. Martha Hale is summoned, by the Sheriff, along with her husband, to go to a nearby house. Ostensibly, Mrs. Peters wanted her company. Why and what happened there the day before is the crux of this tale.

The book concludes with a listing of ten additional short stories of honorable mention. Among the notable ten are “An Ache So Divine” by S. A. Cosby and “Everybody Comes To Lucille’s” by John M. Floyd. Both stories can be found in the anthology, Jukes & Tonks: Crime Fiction Inspired by Music in the Dark and Suspect Choices, which was edited by Michael Bracken and Garry Phillips, and published by Down & Out Books in April 2021.

The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022 is an interesting anthology. It certainly fits Mr. Penzler’s stated definition of what constitutes a mystery and there are crimes galore. Diverse in terms of author styles and subject matter, it was also a book that was very much hit or miss for this reader. Some tales very much appealed to me. Others, not at all. Still, every reader should be able to find several stories they really like in the book.


As previously noted, my reading copy came by way of a NetGalley ARC. The book is currently scheduled to be released on September 13th.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2022

“The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2022” is the annual collection of short stories picked out by a well-known guest editor, Sara Paretsky this year. As is usual, we have a wide variety of subjects and settings, some of which stretch the definition of a mystery story:

“Kiss Of Life” by Doug Allyn – a man saves a drowning victim and gets more than he bargains for.
“A Shooting in Rathreedane” by Colin Barrett – a shooting in the Irish countryside gets complicated.
“White Chocolate” by Jerome Charyn – the mayor of a small town run by a family deals with an internal kidnapping.
“Avalon” by Michael Connelly – a hitman comes to a tourist island, but who is his target?
“Better Austens” by Susan Frith – outsourced executions performed by “mothers”, one of whom has her own issues, in the not-too-distant future.
“El Cuerpo En El Barril” by Tom Larsen – a regional cop gets moved to the city, set in Ecuador, and gets involved in a murder that’s more than it seems.
“October in Kauai” by Sean Marciniak – A young boy has difficult choices to make when a UPS truck goes missing.
“Gun Running on Vacation” by Stefon Mears – two crooks on vacation get tangled with a DEA agent.
“Sleigh Bells for the Hayride” by Keith Lee Morris – delivering heroin for a friend leads to an interesting encounter.
“Violent Devotion” by Gwen Mullins – a man has to confront some hard truths about his son.
“Black Knight” by Jo Nesbo – One of the “Drivers”, the best assassins in the world, uses hypnosis to exact his revenge, and gets caught up in a trap himself.
“Detour” by Joyce Carol Oates – a detour leads a woman to face the unknown, with disastrous consequences.
“Little City Blues” by Annie Reed – tailing a cheating wife at a casino leads to unexpected complications.
“Grief Spam” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch – a woman grieving her husband’s fatal “accident” has to deal with some unpleasant truths.
“A Heaven or a Hell” by Anna Scotti – two boys fell off a cliff and perished, but when one of them survives the question start.
“Bang on the Money” by Ginny Swart – A burglary gets interesting when the tables get turned.
“The Influencer” by Ellen Tremiti – a detective mulls retirement as she tracks down a missing burlesque dancer.
“Give or Take a Quarter Inch” by Joseph S. Walker – a man goes to great lengths to get one more shot at knowing if he was good enough.
“The Theresa Job” by Colson Whitehead – a fence gets dragged into a hotel robbery.
“Where There’s Love” by Michael Wiley – a jewelry store robbery driven by love.
“A Jury of her Peers” by Susan Glaspell – from 1917, two women are confronted with evidence of a motive for murder.

Overall a good (not great) collection, several of the stories have unexpected twists and hidden truths, a couple are quite disturbing.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Penzler Publishers, Mysterious Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

Really liked this collection, a great varied compilation of different styles and aspects of crime.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free ARC.

These mystery stories were awesome! Very well-written and from a variety of authors, the stories really captured modern mystery writing. I really loved the stories by Jo Nesbo and Joyce Carol Oates.

Each story is pretty unique. Yet very few of them offer a mystery or resolution. Just not very enjoyable