Readers cannot go wrong with any of the Best American collections. Ideal for people who like to read one story a day. Highly recommended.

I loved this compilation of stories. Steph Cha and Jess Walter have done an excellent job curating some is the year's best mysteries. The book is fastidiously edited, full of suspense and intrigue, and well-written all the way through. I look forward to this composition every year.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the ARC. This is a great anthology of mysteries. It's also a great option if you're looking for new authors to follow. I like being able to pick and choose stories.

I am a sucker for a good anthology. I really enjoy stories that have a lot to say withtout going on too long, and I appreciate discovering new writers who really know how to tell good tales. And here we have one in which every story is a solid one, every mystery is suspenseful, every thrill is well done. This is a wonderful collection that I highly recommend, and I look forward to reading more from these others, especially S.A. Cosby, Tracy Clark, Lauren Groff, and Leslie James (my favorites from this book).

This is something new, but I liked it! I liked that each of these authors in the book had a different story and that, in the end, you get a little bit of information about each author! I loved that there was a different author in each story, and while not all of them were known to me, I enjoyed reading all the different styles of the authors. However, there was an issue in some of the stories. The plot was too quickly followed and too predictable. That was my main complaint is that when I read a mystery, I love getting to see the mystery as it unfolds in the story by the bread crumbs, but when those bread crumbs are left where you cannot see who the guilty party is going to be then.....it was not as enjoyable as I would have liked. I liked that if you love mystery and suspense, this book has something for you; you will at least find one story that you think is enjoyable. I enjoyed that! This is a very diverse and good collection of short stories! Thank you, Netgalley and Mariner Books, for the fantastic opportunity to read and review this one! It was a treat!

(FYI My review below will run on my blog on 12/14/2022)

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 anthology edited by Jess Walter, is not an easy book to review. While all the tales in the book are good ones, some of the short stories are very dark and grim. For this reader, some of the tales were very intense and disturbing as they connected to things in my childhood. If I was not reading for review, I would have quickly skipped those tales and moved on.

After a foreword by series editor Steph Cha that includes the procedure to be considered for the 2033 anthology (deadline 12/3/2022), and an intro by Jess Walter, it is on to the stories. The stories are presented in alphabetical order by author name. Each tale has a listing of where it originally appeared. Unfortunately, when a magazine is listed, it does not include the month.

Hector Acosta leads off with “La Chingona.” Developers have been buying up blocks of Spokane and they have gotten their hands on Hope Apartments. Eviction is coming. Veronica’s only hope is to raise funds via a web cam deal she is doing. Who would have thought wearing a certain mask of a Mexican wrestler would make things so complicated?

62-year-old Henry Pearse is doing okay for a man of his age in “Lucky Thirteen” by Tracy Clark. It is New Year’s Eve, the streets and sidewalks are icy, and he is about to have a guest. A guest that will be very interested in attending Henry’s celebration of the new year.

Hattie Mae wants out of her Daddy’s bar. She wants a certain musician. She wants something else, something she can’t actually quantify, in the powerful tale, An Ache So Divine by S. A. Cosby.

Mercedes Larza is sure that the boy given her by border patrol is not her son. He looks and talks like him. He has the same birthmark and mole cluster. But, she is sure he isn’t her son in “Detainment” by Alex Espinoza.

As predicted, the man made his move once the train rolled out of the station. How long will the voyeur wait to intercede in “Here’s to New Friends” by Jacqueline Freimor is the question.

Todd Goldberg’s “A Career Spent Disappointing People” comes next where it is July and Shane has a problem. Actually, more than one. Not only is it too damn hot as he has to get gone from California, the Honda he was driving has broken down. His swollen foot is a mess thanks to the damage by the bullet. Nothing has been going right lately and things are getting worse now by the minute.

Francis had been gone five days when the police first arrive at the house in “The Very Last Time” by Juliet Grames. Mrs. Hatcher knows what happened. If she explains, they will never believe her. That is the first of several problems she has in this tale.

“The Wind” by Lauren Groff comes next in a very hard to read story. A mother is determined to do everything she can to save her children and get out of a horrible situation.

Barry is asleep when the guys get him in “No Man’s Land” by James D. F. Hannah. Being the “Real Estate King of Long Island” has had its perks, but winding up on a living room floor and getting kicked everywhere including where no man ever wants to be kicked, is not one of them. The real estate agent is in a world of trouble and not for what you might think considering his occupation.

Lewis Binny’s classic juke box has been stolen as “Return to Sender” by Gar Anthony Haywood begins. Obviously, Binny wants it back. He also has an idea who might have stolen the classic machine, but he is not going to tell that to the St. Louis County Sheriff’s deputy who is taking the report.

Audrie McFadden and Abe had a plan to supplement their income. Things are changing in Alaska. They have to move fast to cash in on the future in “Harriet Point” by Leslie Jones.

Making a good mixed drink is a chemical process. If you know what you are doing, you can make good ones. She likes to make “Stingers” in this tale of the same name by LaToya Jovena.

Joe is enraged and justifiably so in “God Bless America” by Elaine Kagan. Somebody keyed their cars. The cars were outside on the street instead of in the full garage. Connie is too busy cooking food for the holiday and thinking about the past which is stored in the garage.

Nathaniel buys letters in “A Bostonian (in Cambridge)” by Dennis Lehane. He buys letters of rejection as the proprietor of the Larchmont Antique Bookshop near Harvard. The reason he does is tied to his childhood and gradually explained in this complicated story.

Carter got a job handing out flyers in “Remediation” by Kristen Lepionka. In so doing, she saw a few things. She met new people. One of whom changed her life forever.

The Girl Detective is dead. At least that is what is posted on twitter. She does not feel dead. She has a lot to do. But, as she looks, she notices that she can see right through her hand. She needs to know in “Long Live the Girl Detective” by Megan Pillow.

Pugi likes to go on the hunt for men in “Mata Hambre” by Raquel V. Reyes. She likes to go hunting with the narrator. Her target this night is an old flame who is a famous tv guy now in the local area. He is a competitor in a cooking contest that is about to get very interesting for entrants and spectators alike.

Stolen valor is a subject that occasionally pops up in the media. It is the central theme of “Thank You for Your Service” by Mathew Wilson. Kyle came home from serving the country and is having a hard time of it. He comes up with a plan to document the fake vets he sees everywhere and make some money by exposing them via social media.

Janeen Turning Heart needs Virgil’s help. He is the reservation’s enforcer and she has a job for him in “Turning Heart” by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. It is a job he does not want, but it is a job he needs to do for a number of reasons.

For the longest time, father has been the Turkish ambassador to the Russian Federation. His duty to country over family had consequences. As he is apparently having some cognitive issues based on his behavior, secrets and disharmony in the family come to the forefront in “Lycia” by Brendan Williams-Childs.

“Contributors’ Notes” comes next with author bios and an explanation regarding each story from each of the authors. Those explanations cover the author’s intent in the tale, the writing process, and more in an explanation that is often longer than the bio. Those explanations are very interesting and also reflect the obvious diversity in the read.

The book concludes with “Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense Stories of 2021.” There are thirty authors and their tales are listed along with the markets that published them.

Diversity is prevalent in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 and not just in terms of race and gender, though those two are most obvious at a quick glance. Also at work here is diversity in terms of storytelling styles, themes, imagery, and more. The book is a complicated read full of solidly good tales.

It is also a very hard read at times. If you are a certain age and come from a time when nobody intervened when things happened behind closed doors and you carried those signs in public the next day, some of the tales here will land far too close to home.

The tales are about those situations, the choices that are made by and for folks, and as one of the authors eloquently put it how “hurt people hurt people.” That idea pretty much applies to every tale in the book, one way or another. These are tales that make the reader think and not always in a happy way. The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 is a complicated anthology and one well worth your time.


My reading copy came from the publisher as a NetGalley ARC.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2022

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 is the annual anthology (the 26th!) of well curated mystery and suspense short fiction of the year chosen by guest editor Jess Walter and with an insightful and interesting foreword by series editor Steph Cha. Released 1st Nov 2022 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on their Mariner imprint, it's 336 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. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

There are 20 stories by my count and they're from authors both familiar and new to me. The stories are varied, there were (as always) some which didn't grab me personally, but all were well written and competently plotted. 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. 

A special aside about the book's introduction, engagingly written by Jess Walter. I -love- reading author notes, journals, thought processes, heck, even the "music I listened to whilst writing this book" lists authors occasionally include in their notes. Mr. Walter writes charmingly and geekily with humor and wit about all of the above and even ties it in to Patricia Highsmith's reprinted journals (which I must now chase down and read immediately, thanks for increasing my TBR pile).

Four stars on average. It's a quality read, and highly recommended. It's also a good resource for finding new authors to follow, and being reminded of ones you haven't read for a few years.

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

Anthologies fill a necessary space in my reading history. I find short stories that feed into my favorite series and excellent stories by authors who quickly become favorites on my TBR lists. I always have at least one anthology with me wherever I go, just in case I have time to read and finish a short story. This annual contribution to my library is one I would recommend to any and everyone looking for something different.

THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE 2022 edited by Jess Walter (Beautiful Ruins) and Steph Cha contains twenty short stories published the previous year which they consider the best examples of mystery and suspense. Topics range from a girl detective to a serial killer sociopath to crime/time travel. Authors include Chicago native Tracy Clark, S.A. Cosby, Lauren Groff, and many others. The tales I sampled were a bit dark relative to the cozier mysteries which I usually read, but they had me guessing and engaged. A long list of Honorable Mentions as well as some descriptive Contributor Notes are included. Collections in this series are worth perusing, particularly if you are someone who is looking for a well-written, but short, contribution to a favorite genre. As Cha notes in his introduction, "we read to get educated and feel connected as well as to escape and forget."

Well-crafted short story anthologies deliver hidden gems covering a range of styles, topics and voices. From the traditional victims turning the tables on their tormentor tales, to possible time travel, a daughter’s search for her father’s approval, an antiquarian bookseller in search of a letter, a jukebox caper, etc., The Best American Mystery & Suspense 2022 is no exception.

Each short story offered interesting perspectives. The protagonists of these 20 works of short fiction include an African-American fix-it man, a barkeep, a Native American, a Latina, members of the LBGTQ community, a middle America mom, a predator, a real estate king, a serial killer, a woman from Turkey, a veteran and a victim of domestic violence.

Hands down, the favorite of this girl detective wannabe since she first read The Secret of the Old Clock at the age of 11, has to be Long Live the Girl Detective by Megan Pillow. Even though she’s dead, the titian-haired girl detective with the blue roadster shoos away those brother detectives and solves her own murder.

Don’t skim over the Introduction, Honorable Mentions and Contributor Notes, which add to the volume.

Also please note: While I really enjoyed reading Return to Sender, I was more than a little shocked to see racial slurs included.

I received a free egalley courtesy of Mariner Books, through NetGalley. This review is fair and impartial.

An interesting collection of 20 short mystery/suspense stories. What I like about anthologies is that it helps me identify new authors that I might want to follow. I found a couple here that I will be exploring further. I liked the majority of the stories here, some more than others. There were a few that I could not get into, and did not finish reading. But that's the best part of short stories, you don't have a lot of time invested in any one of them, and so do not have to feel guilty about abandoning them!

I read collections like this to find new authors or stories by my favorite authors that I have no read. This is the case with this collection of mystery and suspense. The best story in this collection is Turning Heart by David Heska Wanbli Weiden from This Time for Sure. I recommend reading his mystery Winter Counts, and his upcoming novel to be released in 2022.

Every year I look forward to the new edition of this excellent anthology series that offers its audience the opportunity to read some of the best mystery stories written in the past year. There are authors that I know in these pages, as for example, S.A. Cosby, Lauren Groff, Gar Anthony Haywood, Leslie James and Kristin Lepionka among others. However, joyfully, there were lots of new writers (to me) to get to know as well.

Steph Cha introduces this collection with some tough reality; at the time of her writing we were still struggling with Covid and what, to many, has been a bleak political landscape. She notes that one way that people cope is to look to fiction, and readers will do exactly that as they pick stories to read from the choices in these pages.

The introduction is excellent and detailed. The information on individual authors and their stories will help readers know where to begin, if one does not want to read in order. Walter also urges fans of the genre to also look to the honorable mentions for more good reads.

This title is one that lovers of mysteries will want to view. They will leave with an appreciation of those who write stories for us.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Mariner Books for this title. All opinions are my own.

I love reading short mystery and suspense stories and this anthology has something for everyone who loves to read mysteries during Fall!

A wonderful anthology with terrific stories from the first to the last. See my review in the Winter 2022 issue of Mystery Scene Magazine.

Another excellent entry in the "Best American" series. This anthology of mystery and suspense stories has something for everyone who enjoys a chilling little tingle in their spine.

A collection of twenty short stories first published in America during 2021. This is a Netgalley ARC, courtesy of HarperCollins. The anticipated release date of November 1, 2022.

A wonderful, engrossing, and intriguing collection of stories, many of which could've been easily been adapted for the old television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" with the lack of definitive endings. I would definitely recommend putting this on your TBR (To Be Read) list if you are a fan of short story collections and/or a mystery aficionado. I truly enjoyed myself.

My favorite story was probably "Lucky Thirteen", earning a 5 star review. The twists were unexpected and, although I probably shouldn't say this, somewhat satisfying. I can't say more without spoiling your experience.

Contents:

"La Chingana" by Hector Acosta
"Lucky Thirteen" by Tracy Clark
"An ache So Divine" by S. A. Cosby
"Detainment" by Alex Espinoza
"Here's to New Friends" by Jacqueline Freimor
"A Career Spent Disappointing People" by Tod Goldberg
"The Very Last Time" by Juliet Grames
"The Wind" by Lauren Groff
"No Man's Land" by James D. F. Hannah
"Return to Sender" by Gar Anthony Haywood
"Harriot Point" by Leslie Jones
"Stingers" by LaToya Jovena
"God Bless America" by Elaine Kagan
"A Bostonian (in Cambridge)" by Dennis Lehane
"Remediation" by Kristen Lepionka
"Long Live the Girl Detective" by Megan Pillow
"Mata Hambre" by Raquel V. Reyes
"Thank You for Your Service" by Matthew Wilson
"Turning Heart" by David Heska Wanbli Werden
"Lycia" by Brendan Williams Child


Reviews posted on Goodreads, Tumblr, and Storygraph.

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 is a nice collection of stories published in the past year. As usual with a collection there are stronger and weaker stories, but everything considered I enjoyed the collection!

For some reason, I find it amazing that mystery magazines and short story collections still exist in this day and age. “The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022”, edited by Jess Walter and Steph Cha, collects a sampling of stories written in the past year in various publications. As usual with these types of collections, some of the stories are better than others, but this collection seems to have more hits than misses:

“La Chingona” by Hector Acosta: an internet celebrity meets one of her fans who is very interested in the wrestling mask she wears, with twisted results.

“Lucky Thirteen” by Tracy Clark: A robber finds an easy target in an old man who lives alone, with even more twisted results.

“An Ache So Devine” by S. A. Cosby: A white girl in a segregated bar leads to trouble and revenge.

“Detainment” by Alex Espinoza: Separation of children from their mothers at the border leads to questions about what happens at these reunions.

“Here’s to New Friends” by Jacqueline Fremor: One that I’ve read in a previous collection, a very scary look at a predator and victim together on a train.

“A Career Spent Disappointing People” by Tod Goldberg: A small-time criminal has to figure a way out of some serious trouble, maybe with the help of a small-time lawyer (and a silent clown)? But it’s never that easy.

“The Very Last Time” by Juliet Grames: A woman loses her husband while time traveling, but why are the police so interested in her story?

“The Wind” by Lauren Groff: How does one escape an abusive husband who also happens to be a policeman?

“No Man’s Land” by James D. F. Hannah: A real estate hustler past his prime gets more than he bargained for with a local gangster. Sometimes you’ve gotta get your hands dirty.

“Return to Sender” by Gar Anthony Haywood: Some small-town hoods steal a jukebox for ransom but break it before returning it, causing a little bit of a problem.

“Harriet Point” by Leslie Jones: A married couple decide to grow illegal pot in Alaska, with unintended consequences. Not as easy as one would think.

“Stingers” by LaToya Jovena: A woman gets revenge for her little sister, told in reverse.

“God Bless America” by Elaine Kagan: Not really a mystery, just a story about what’s valuable to people.

“A Bostonian (in Cambridge)” by Dennis Lehane: An owner of a used bookshop collects good-bye letters while trying to track down his own lost family.

“Remediation” by Kristen Lepionka: A junkie trying to go straight by distributing radon abatement fliers meets a rich wife with her own problems.

“Long Live the Girl Detective” by Megan Pillow: a weird meta-story take on Nancy Drew.

“Mata Hambre” by Raquel V. Reyes: A late night love triangle (quadrangle?) set against a Hispanic sandwich making competition in Miami. Not really a mystery, but there is a murder!

“Thank You for Your Service” by Matthew Wilson: an Army vet thinks he can make some money and turn his life around by exposing fake Vets on YouTube, with some unexpected consequences.

“Turning Heart” by David Heska Wanbli Weiden: A man who used to dispense rough justice on the Native American reservation gets dragged into one more favor.

“Lycia” by Brenda Williams-Childs: The daughter of a Turkish ambassador confronts some hard truths about her father when her brother is killed. Also not really a mystery.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Mariner Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 has many good offerings; a couple on the creep factor of one-to-ten rate a twelve, so there are fun reads for everyone. A picture comes to mind of a large lit fireplace in a study somewhere with yours truly sitting in a wing- backed chair holding the book in one hand and a snifter of brandy in the other. Of course the elements are howling outside with all manner of wind and rain, maybe a blizzard. The raw outside and the cozy within, until you read the unsettling tales that rob you of your comfort. They are in there, some more unnerving than others, but if you are looking for irony and payback, look no further.