Amor Towles selects the best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Andrew Child, Jeffrey Deaver, and T. C. Boyle.
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, New York Times bestseller Amor Towles has selected the twenty most puzzling, most thrilling, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume. The volume also contains a "bonus story" selected from the bookshop's rare book room, featuring a look into the history of this illustrious genre.
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“Across a dizzying number of subgenres, this collection delights by prizing quality over name recognition. There’s something here for every mystery fan."
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Another outstanding annual compilation of mystery stories. This one deserves a place in every mystery collection.”
— Booklist (starred review)Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Amor Towles is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway. The three novels have collectively sold more than six million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages.
Otto Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. He was publisher of The Armchair Detective, the founder of the Mysterious Press and the Armchair Detective Library, and created the publishing firm Otto Penzler Books. He is a two-time Edgar Award–winner and the recipient of the Ellery Queen Award. A New York Times bestselling editor of numerous anthologies, his work includes Murder for Love, Murder for Revenge, Murder and Obsession, The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time, and The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century. He lives in New York City.
Jeffery Deaver is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages. His novels have won the Nero Wolfe Award, three Ellery Queen Readers’ Awards, a British Thumping Good Read Award, and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger awards from the British Crime Writers’ Association. A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, he was born outside of Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University.
T. C. Boyle is an American novelist and short-story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published eighteen novels and twelve collections of short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1988 for his third novel, World’s End, and Frances’ Prix Médicis étranger in 1995 for The Tortilla Curtain. His novel Drop City, a New York Times bestseller, was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Award. He has also won the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the Henry David Thoreau Prize, and the Jonathan Swift Prize for satire. He is a distinguished professor emeritus of English at the University of Southern California.
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) is the author of the novels The Age of Innocence and Old New York, both of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She was the first woman to receive that honor. In 1929 she was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction. She was born in New York and is best known for her stories of life among the upper-class society into which she was born. She was educated privately at home and in Europe. In 1894 she began writing fiction, and her novel The House of Mirth established her as a leading writer.
Colleen Delany has been a sparkling jewel in the crown of Washington’s vastly talented acting community for thirty-seven days now and will confidently challenge to a fierce best out of three in “paper-rock-scissors” anyone wishing to topple her from that lofty perch. Primarily a stage actress,—having played roles at Shakespeare Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Theater J, Washington Stage Guild, Theater of the First Amendment, and Source Theatre, among others—Ms. Delany does a you-name-it of various acting jobs, including audiobook narration.
Christina Delaine is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator and accomplished stage actress. Her theater credits include Jewtopia, the longest-running comedy in Off-Broadway history, and the title role in Antigone at both Portland Center Stage and Kentucky Repertory Theatre. She holds a BA degree from Dartmouth College and an MFA in acting from Brown University.
Keith Sellon-Wright is an audiobook narrator and an actor with more than thirty years of experience in Hollywood. His television roles have included Frasier, Seinfeld, The West Wing, Mad Men, Parks and Recreation, Grey’s Anatomy, and Scandal. He also serves as a “voice of the New York Times,” narrating selected articles for their daily audio edition.
JD Jackson is a theater professor, aspiring stage director, and award-winning audiobook narrator. He is a classically trained actor, and his television and film credits include roles on House, ER, Law & Order, Hack, Sherrybaby, Diary of a City Priest, and Lucky Number Slevin. He is the recipient of more than a dozen Earphones Awards for narration and an Odyssey Honor for G. Neri’s Ghetto Cowboy, and he was also named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of the Year for 2012 and 2013. An adjunct professor at Los Angeles Southwest College, he has an MFA in theater from Temple University.