This series book is billed as “the premier annual showcase” for the country’s best short mystery fiction. Deaver has collected twenty mystery stories, some of them bizarre, some with twist endings, and some pretty standard. Below is the list of stories and authors in this volume:
1. “Rust” by N. J. Ayres
2. “My Interview with the Avenger” by Tom Bissell
3. “Winning” by Alafair Burke
4. “Big Midnight Special” by James Lee Burke
5. “Beanball” by Ron Carlson
6. “Father’s Day” by Michael Connelly
7. “Pretty Little Parasite” by David Corbett
8. “Meantime, Quentin Ghlee” by M.M.M Hayes
9. “Two Thousand Volts” by Chuck Hogan
10. “Manila Burning” by Clark Howard
11. “Down Home Blues” by Rob Kantner
12. “My Son” by Robert McClure
13. “Free Radicals” by Alice Munro
14. “Dear Husband” by Joyce Carol Oates
15. “Wanted Man” by Nic Pizzolatto
16. “Kamila and the King of Kandy” by Garry Craig Powell
17. “The Man Who Fell in Love with the Stump of a Tree” by Randy Rohn
18. “G-Men” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
19. “Bola de la Fortuna” by Jonathan Tel
20. “This or Any Desert” by Vu Tran
I liked “Beanball” and “Manila Burning” best as they were well written stories with great development. I liked “Kamila and the King of Kandy” the least. It was dull and boring to me, with little good development. Of course that is only my opinion. On the whole the stories were well worth reading and I give this collection a 6 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
