The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 by Louise Penny

The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 Reviews

• 
  RJ - Slayer of Trolls

  The 22nd annual edition of this anthology series contains the following stories (along with a rating for each and some appropriate song lyrics):
  
  Banana Triangle Six by
  Louis Bayard - 3/5 - I hope I die before I get old
  Y is for Yangchuan Lizard by
  Andrew Bourelle - 4/5 - There's a rat in me kitchen
  The Designee by
  T. Coraghessan Boyle - 4/5 - even the losers keep a little bit of pride
  Smoked by
  Michael Bracken - 3/5 - I like smoke and lightning, heavy metal thunder
  The Wild Side of Life by
  James Lee Burke - 3/5 - Satan cries "take aim"
  Too Much Time by
  Lee Child - 4/5 - it's hard to believe such a calamity
  The Third Panel by
  Michael Connelly - 3/5 - Point and shoot, I know just what you mean
  Gun Work by
  John M. Floyd - 4/5 - I play for keeps 'cuz I might not make it back
  Cabin Fever by
  David Edgerley Gates - 4/5 - I fell into a burnin' ring of fire
  Small Signs by
  Charlaine Harris - 4/5 - a pretty face can hide an evil mind
  Takeout by
  Rob Hart - 4/5 - gave up on sushi, give me an egg roll
  Death in the Serengeti by
  David H. Hendrickson - 3/5 - in the jungle, the mighty jungle
  All Our Yesterdays by
  Andrew Klavan - 4/5 - you go back, Jack, do it again
  PX Christmas by
  Martin Limón - 4/5 - ey, sexy lady!
  Windward by
  Paul D. Marks - 3/5 - you keep lying when you ought to be truthing
  Phantomwise: 1972 by
  Joyce Carol Oates - 1/5 - it goes on and on and on and on...
  Rule Number One by
  Alan Orloff - 3/5 - there's just no hope for our final embrace
  The Apex Predator by
  William Dylan Powell - 3/5 - give me those swamp river days again
  Waiting on Joe by
  Scott Loring Sanders - 3/5 - cool Joe, mean Joe
  Breadfruit by
  Brian Silverman - 3/5 - on an island in the sun, we'll be playing and having fun
• 
  Elaine

  As always, a very mixed bag.
  
  My usual gripes stand for these compilations, especially The Best American Mystery Stories 2018:
  
  1. Most of these stories aren't mysterious
  
  2. Two female writers? That's the best the female editor can do?
  
  Since most of these stories don't fall under the mystery category, I'm sure there are plenty of female writers that qualify for this compilation.
  
  3. I skimmed most of the stories since the majority of the themes did not interest me; case in point, I hate Westerns.
  
  I did like Waiting on Joe and The Apex Predator.
• 
  Steven Belanger

  Very good anthology of mystery stories published recently, in magazines big and small, mostly from Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen, that remind me of the high level of competition I have out there when I send my own stuff out. A few are excellent. The best are "Banana Triangle Six," the first one, though it may be too sad for some, including me. My other preferred favorite is the second one, "Y is for Yangchuan Lizard," a quick slice of tone-perfect noir, my preferred mystery sub-genre. (The antho's line-up is alphabetical by author last name, so the fact that the first two are my favorites is a coincidence. The editor didn't necessarily pile it on top.) A few other stories are very good, including "Waiting on Joe," which is pitch-perfect and very smooth. Others are okay. A couple made me wonder why, and gave me hope. None are bad. The one by Joyce Carol Oates--there has to be one--is very well-written, but again a disappointment to me. I don't know what I expect from her, but I usually like her stories and yet are disappointed in them at the same time, like how I got a B+ in a high school English class one quarter, yet the teacher's third comment was "Capable of Doing Better." High praise or a back-handed compliment? You decide.
  
  I recommend the reader also seek out past years' anthologies of the Best of..., of this and of your own preferred genre. There's lots of "Best of"s and "The Year's Best..." and tons of others. They sell well, there's never a bad story (though of course you'll prefer some more than others), they get the short story authors (besides Oates, not a rich one amongst them) a little more coin, and they're good adverts (as Tracey Ullman says) for the small magazines they sometimes appear in. Feel free to look at these small magazines, online and physical, as well. Worth your time, and it gets you the hell away from all the negative political crap out there right now. I suggest hand-held magazines over online ones, but that's just me being hardcore old-fashioned, and I admit that the online ones often pay the writer more moolah. But, still...
• 
  DeAnna Knippling

  Mixed bag of mystery and crime stories.
  
  I've been reading a fair number of mystery short stories lately, so my point of view is a bit skewed--I was okay but not thrilled by most of these. I think I'm at a point where I'm starting to see a lot of repeated patterns to the stories, so it feels like there had better be something more than a solidly written standard plot in order to impress. The ones I liked here were because of characters, not plot. Settings were mostly kind of standard, too.
  
  As a huge Alice fan I was looking forward to JCO's Alice story but did not like it at all. It's a prototypical JCO damsel in distress story with a few references stuck on, so it feels like a possibility wasted. Good writing, of course, but that ending fell flat.
  
  The stories in the first half were much stronger than in the latter half. Not a waste of time, certainly, and there are factors in my opinion that are probably not going to apply to most people. I doubt anyone else is going to be as annoyed about the JCO story :) So a tentative recommendation, if you like crime and mystery short stories.
• 
  Nancy

  This compilation’s 20 stories were either great or really bad. I was disappointed that there were only two female authors amongst the 20. The editor - Louise Penny - should have thought to include more women’s entries. But until someone invites me to edit one of these anthologies I’ll leave it up to them!
  
  My favorite was T.C Boyle’s “The Designee” which is about one of the oldest long cons out there - preying on the elderly by promising millions of dollars only to string them along and take their very last dime. Think: Nigerian Money Scams. My least favorite was Joyce Carol Oats’ “Phantomwise: 1972”. I’m a huge JCO fan and was really looking forward to her story. I found it dull and it felt stale and dated.
  
  I rate these anthologies based on how much I enjoy the great stories while taking the bad ones out of the equation. The solid ones were fun and original.
• 
  Greg

  Louise Penny, this year's editor, has done a wonderful job in selecting the stories that appear in this 400-page volume! A few are stories that involve characters in places outside the United States, too, so there is an international flavor to this volume.
  
  There were only a couple of the 20 individual stories that I really did not care for much; the others I would rank from "very good" to "superb."
  
  If you like mysteries, and enjoy the short-story format, I highly recommend this volume to you!
• 
  karenbee

  I used to love The Best American collections, but hadn't read one in a while, and I don't think I've ever read the mystery flavor, so I was excited to go through this one. I'd say I thoroughly enjoyed about a quarter of the stories, didn't mind a third, and thought it was puzzling that the remaining stories were included, because they didn't seem great, and certainly not "best." I don't read a ton of mysteries, though, so my best-ometer might be out of whack.
  
• 
  Jock

  I haven't had much luck with short story collections and was worried when I started this one. The first story was easily the poorest of the entire lot - hardly even a mystery. But things improved. Almost every ensuing tale quickly caught my interest and proved worth the read. There are one or two marginal pieces but, overall, this collection was an enjoyable ride.
• 
  Rebecca

  This collection of short stories is outstanding. I have discovered several authors that I must look for a book that they have written so I can take in more of their remarkable work. I also read stories by some I have read many of their books. One of the most famous, Joyce Carol Oates, is an enigma to me. I keep promising myself not to read anything else by her, and then I do. The writing is so good. The subject is often so bleak and tortured. I feel defiled, angry, and despondent after reading her work.
  Meanwhile, so many of these stories are clever and have brilliant twists or so much power to be a short commentary about the nature of humanity.
• 
  Lisa

  I gasped out loud while reading so many of these. So well-written with twists and turns.
  
  My favorite was "Waiting on Joe." A shout-out to "Phantonwise: 1972" as well. 5/5 stars.
• 
  Christopher

  I see the words "mixed bag" used quite often in other reviews of this edition of BAMS.
  
  I'll join that bandwagon.
• 
  Victoria

  What an entertaining collection this is! The stories cover a wide range of mystery/crime/suspense writing, with a fair bit of edge. Edited by Louise Penny from a collection assembled under the direction of Otto Penzler, the twenty stories, all published in the past year, first appeared in US crime magazines, in literary magazines, in themed anthologies, and in single-author collections by T.C. Boyle, Lee Child, Scott Loring Sanders).
  Says editor Penny, “A great short story is like a great poem. Crystalline in clarity. Each word with purpose. Lean, muscular, graceful. Nothing wasted. A brilliant marriage of intellect, rational thought, and creativity.” This edition underscores her point on every page.
  Though most of the stories run to about twenty pages, Lee Child, with “Too Much Time,” doubles that length. He meticulously describes how the redoubtable Jack Reacher digs himself in deeper and deeper with Maine police while all the time working on an unexpected (by this reader) solution to his precarious situation. Joyce Carol Oates also provides a near-novella with “Phantomwise: 1972,” about a naïve college coed who makes consistently bad choices and the men who exploit them.
  Most of the stories take place in the good old US of A, from the sketchy surrounds of Paul Marks’s Venice Beach (“Windward”) to James Lee Burke’s Cajun country (“The Wild Side of Life”), though a few are set in more exotic climes: Africa in David H. Hendrickson’s Derringer-winning “Death in the Serengeti,” the tropical and fictional island of St. Pierre (“Breadfruit” by Brian Silverman), and the Republic of Korea (“PX Christmas” by Martin Limón).
  The selected authors found clever and creative ways to deploy the staple characters of crime fiction—unfaithful wives (“Waiting on Joe” by Scott Loring Sanders), assassins (“Takeout” by Rob Hart) and serial killers (“All Our Yesterdays” by Andrew Klavan). They deal with classic crime situations too: trying to escape a difficult past (“Smoked” by Michael Bracken and “Gun Work” by John M. Floyd) or the long tail of a super-secret job (“Small Signs” by Charlaine Harris); prison breaks (“Cabin Fever” by David Edgerley Gates), and the double or is it triple? cross (“Y is for Yangchuan Lizard” by Andrew Bourelle and “Rule Number One” by Alan Orloff).
  A couple of the scams were so deftly described that you may find yourself grinning with the vigilante surprise of Michael Connelly’s “The Third Panel” and the flim-flamming of an elderly man in TC Boyle’s “The Designee,” in which you must decide how complicit the elderly “victim” is. It’s the best story of his I’ve ever read. There’s also a thought-provoking twist in “Banana Triangle Six” by Louis Bayard.
  This talented collection of authors fills their stories with great lines, though one of my favorites comes from “The Apex Predator,” by William Dylan Powell, wherein the main character claims he learned in Uncle Sam’s navy the “most useful tactical skill ever developed by humankind—and it’s not swimming or fighting or tying knots. It’s the art of bullshitting someone so you don’t get in trouble.”
  If you’ve been glancing over the author names looking for (and finding) many that are familiar, you may also have noticed the near-absence of women authors. Joyce Carol Oates who has more than a hundred published books is not a surprise in this list, nor is Charlaine Harris, who’s been publishing mystery fiction since 1981. It’s a real mystery why no other accomplished, newer authors appear here. Women are somewhat more prominent in the list of “Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2017” at the back of the volume, where nearly a third are women (10 of 31).
  Which publications brought these stories to light in the first place (and where you might find next year’s winner’s now)? Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine published four of the stories, Mystery Tribune (two), and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Fiction River, and Switchblade, one apiece. Also Level Best Books’ anthologies (Noir at the Salad Bar and Snowbound) produced a pair of them.
  
• 
  Mark Robison

  Bored by or hated the first three stories so DNF'd.
• 
  Michael

  My review for this anthology was published by Library Journal on September 13, 2018:
  
  In the 22nd volume of this evergreen series, guest editor Louise Penny (“Chief Inspector Gamache” novels) features 20 selections that travel as far back as the Old West and as far abroad as the Serengeti. Andrew Bourelle sets the tone early with the suitably nasty slice of modern noir “Y Is for Yangchuan Lizard”; Michael Bracken’s “Smoked” has a reformed motorcycle gang member’s anonymity threatened by the sudden popularity of his barbecue restaurant. In “Phantomwise: 1972,” the longest and most haunting story, Joyce Carol Oates recasts Lewis Carroll’s Alice as a college girl in her own tormented Wonderland, torn between the young professor who has impregnated her and an old visiting poet. Other highlights include Alan Orloff’s super-twisty “Rule Number One,” which packs an impressive number of double-crosses in ten pages, and Michael Connelly’s solid-as-expected “The Third Panel.” Memorable entries from literary stalwarts Louis Bayard, T.C. Boyle, James Lee Burke, and Lee Child round out the collection. VERDICT The range of authors, styles, and settings in these tales ensures every reader will find something to remember. A worthy supplement to all mystery collections.
  
  Copyright ©2018 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
  
• 
  Sylvia Johnson

  Quite a few of the stories could have been classified as science fiction and not my idea of mysteries. The definition here was it has to have a crime.
• 
  Pauline

  Not really what I was expecting, based on the title. "Mystery" is loosely defined as there being a crime that is central to the story. I enjoy mystery stories largely because of the puzzle aspect, and the character of the person trying to solve the mystery makes it more or less enjoyable. I guess I don't find all that much appeal in crime stories, minus the puzzle. There was some minor amount of mystery in these stories, I suppose - any good story has to have something unknown in it or why would you bother reading? - but not much of a puzzle element. One story, The Designee, I really disliked, and the only mystery was how long it was going to drag on, when it was so obvious what was happening. But on the whole they were moderately interesting, and offered a great deal of variety in terms of character, setting, and tone.
• 
  Vince Darcangelo

  Probably my favorite installment of the series. Faves:
  
  Louis Bayard -- Banana Triangle Six
  
  Andrew Bourelle -- Y is for Yangchuan Lizard
  
  T.C. Boyle -- The Designee
  
  Michael Bracken -- Smoked
  
  James Lee Burke -- The Wild Side of Life
  
  Lee Child -- Too Much Time
  
  Michael Connelly -- The Third Panel
  
  Rob Hart -- Takeout
  
  Paul D. Marks -- Windward
  
  Alan Orloff -- Rule Number One
• 
  In

  Of course there are some I favor over others, but I really enjoyed the writing.
• 
  Joseph

  Only two stories in here that are worth seeking out, by Michael Bracken and Alan Orloff.
• 
  jeff

  These aren't really mysteries.
• 
  John Bohnert

  Wow! This anthology of short stories seems to have been written just for me.
  I can't believe how many stories were excellent.
  I am so very glad that I read this book.
• 
  Philip Wyeth

  This is a disappointing anthology for several reasons. First, as others have noted, most of these stories are not mysteries in the classic “whodunnit” sense. Second, although the foreword says that the twenty stories were selected from among thousands published during the preceding year, the inclusion of lackluster works from several bestselling/established authors makes that claim seem dubious.
  
  While the publisher got to name-drop in the blurbs, these authors essentially wrote “mini-episodes” for existing famous characters without having to do the inventive work of creating someone new. None of this aligns with the criteria one would expect for evaluating finalists for a “year's best” anthology. (See the stories by David Edgerley Gates, Charlaine Harris, and Martin Limón, for example.)
  
  Beyond that, the quality of their writing isn't always what you'd expect from “masters of the craft,” as guest editor Louise Penny's introduction suggests. Consider this sentence on page 123 from world-famous Lee Child in the Jack Reacher story “Too Much Time”:
  
  “In other words there was visual drama and emotion, but therefore not very much patient looking out through the car windows at the immediate neighborhood surroundings.”
  
  How does that get past an editor? Particularly within the sphere of the multi-million-dollar, bestselling Jack Reacher franchise?
  
  The most baffling inclusion of all is the forty page “Phantomwise: 1972” by Joyce Carol Oates. Perhaps it has some literary merit, I don't know, but the absolute lack of any crime or violence until the very end makes me suspect that allotting ten percent of the book for such a famous author was a calculated move to boost sales.
  
  The most imaginative and engaging stories (“Banana Triangle Six” by Louis Bayard and Andrew Bourelle's “Y is for Yangchuan Lizard”) actually brush up against sci-fi, making me wonder if my own reading habits influenced my indifference to the straightforward pieces—or if in fact some of these other authors were just going through the motions while sticking to the rules of their particular sub-genre.
  
  “All Our Yesterdays” by Andrew Klavan is quite engaging and well written, but then nosedives awfully with its cheap and lazy reveal—and one that, in light of a certain real-life criminal finally having been positively identified, makes it seem even more preposterous now that we know the banal truth.
  
  Michael Bracken's “Smoked” stands out as one of the better pieces, but perhaps that's mostly due to the unique nature of its “flavors”—FBI Witness Protection participant reinventing himself as a BBQ restaurant owner—because events play out step by step in real time with very little “mystery” involved, and the last page reads like a newspaper blurb as it neatly buttons up our remaining questions.
  
  TC Boyle's utterly dull “The Designee” is a true head-scratcher. It tells the tale of a widowed senior citizen getting scammed out of his retirement savings. We plod through twenty pages waiting for something unexpected to happen, but no, it's simply a dramatization of what we've all heard about in the news before. It's baffling that such an accomplished author would write this story as-is, let alone for it then to be selected as one of the annual highlights.
  
  Rob Hart's immersive “Takeout” plays through a unique lens, and is enjoyable despite the main character's cliché back story and the somewhat predictable ending. “Gun Work” by John M. Floyd offers a tasty bit of historical private investigation, but I can't say there's much that will stick with you after reading this Old West tale.
  
  Several decent, promising stories will hold your attention to the end, but then you'll say, “That's it?!” Alan Orloff's “Rule Number One” and Michael Connelly's “The Third Panel” come to mind.
  
  “The Apex Predator” was very impressive. It's both brisk and engaging—and the twist during the reveal taps into what might perhaps be the greatest fear for many people. I'd be curious to see what William Dylan Powell's fiction would look like in long form.
  
  The final two stories encapsulate what we get from this average compendium: inoffensive short tales driven by quirky characters. “Waiting for Joe” by Scott Loring Sanders comes to us from a Christmas tree farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, while Brian Silverman's “Breadfruit” is set on a Caribbean island. Untrustworthy partners, shady newcomers, and a whole lotta sensory details are on display in these decent but unspectacular offerings.
  
  Best stories: “Y is for Yangchuan Lizard” and “The Apex Predator.”
• 
  Ryan Garton

  ***Review will likely contain SPOILERS because I'm not a professional literary critic, and dancing around key points in the story feels more trouble than it's worth. This review may serve as a memory jog for me years later when I've totally forgotten what I've read. Also probably won't contain spoilers because who gets off on spoiling mysteries of all things?***
  
  I never read short (and rarely read long) mystery stories, so I had no idea what to expect. I have read other books in the Best American series; always mixed results, as to be expected.
  
  QUICK THOUGHTS (in order of appearance):
  
  Banana Triangle Six A nice, tight little story that felt a wee bit Black Mirror-ish. It's been a few weeks since I read this one, but it reminded me a little of Shirley Jackson.
  
  Y Is for Yangchuan Lizard I kinda want to try just a small snort of that Y. And then maybe just another one. . .
  
  The Designee Broke my heart. I love the observation about the boredom that accompanies a death-bed vigil. What an unspoken and complicated little emotion that is.
  
  Smoked This one was pretty fun, and it made me very hungry for barbecue.
  
  Wild Side of Life Stray observation omitted because I have forgotten what it's about.
  
  Too Much Time Despite not being intimately familiar with Reacher, I fell right into it. The right amount of grab and a slick, confident hero.
  
  The Third Panel I see you, HB.
  
  Gun Work A Wild West Detective Noir? The genre I never knew I was missing from my life.
  
  Cabin Fever The premise had me so excited after the first few bits, but slowly and steadily I felt like I was reading from further and further away, until I disappeared into the great who-cares-ness.
  
  Small Signs Had some really fun Kill Bill moments and I still have no idea who I am rooting for.
  
  Takeout Guessed the ending, which made me feel smart. So I suppose there's that?
  
  Death in the Serengeti More action than mystery and I would have liked an even more cathartic comeuppance.
  
  All Our Yesterdays Loved it. Put the pieces together as it unfolded, but in that totally satisfying 500-piece jigsaw kinda way. Liking these mystery stories that blend genres.
  
  PX Christmas Made it about halfway until I abandoned. No explanation as to why.
  
  Windward Appreciated the landmarks as a 20 year LA resident. Really want to visit that bunker/office just for a tour. Committed to working "petrichor" into my vocabulary.
  
  Phantomwise: 1972 Among my favorites as well as the longest. I really felt for the heroine of this story and begrudgingly accept the injustice of the resolution. VERY begrudgingly.
  
  Rule Number One Ahead of the game on this one too, but that didn't make it any less fun. Quick.
  
  The Apex Predator Nice touch, starting it with the blurb from the Houston Chronicle.
  
  Waiting on Joe I really do think this is my favorite one. The slow reveals were clever. I absolutely could have done without the image of the kittens that Joe used to get. That's some really awful imagery. But all in I was totally along for the ride.
  
  Breadfruit Well at least I now know that breadfruit is a thing that exists and I have the Google search to prove it.
  
  Did you find this review helpful? I highly doubt it. Why did I write it? I'm not entirely sure. I've always just starred books and somehow got a bee in my bonnet about writing reviews this year. There it is.
  
  
  
• 
  Grady

  I liked this year’s selection much better than I’ve liked other recent years in this series. Louise Penny seems to have picked stories built around interesting ideas. Sometimes they are executed well, sometimes indifferently, but for virtually all, the core idea of the plot is intriguing. The writing for most of these stories is fine but straightforward, though Joyce Carol Oates’ entry, Phantomwise:1972, is pretty literary. Only one of the stories struck me as being primarily a character sketch, T. C. Boyle, The Designee, which explores a scam and feels like a retelling of innumerable sad nonfiction accounts - perhaps I missed an important clue in this one. One disappointing aspect: most years, the Best American Mystery Stories include four or five women out of a total 20 authors; this year, I counted just two. My favorite stories from this collection were Michael Bracken, Smoked (a BBQ joint owner with a past, it comes calling); Lee Child, Too Much Time (because it was an actual mystery, although it also has the standard Jack Reacher quality of hyper-realism to the point of fantasy); Michael Connelly, The Third Panel (for the cool idea at the core, which would make for a good novel); John M. Floyd, Gun Work (a private investigator in the late 1800s with a past, someone else’s past comes calling); and David Edgerley Gates, Cabin Fever (I’d love to read about these characters in a longer novel). In her choices, Louise Penny seems particularly taken with the themes of how characters communicate with their allies in front of their opponents, and how communities built from years of kindness rally and save main characters in trouble. A few of the stories are really dark, but in general - as with Penny’s own works - most offer of hopeful view of human capacity to trust and support one another.
• 
  Judah Kosterman

  An anthology is a good way to sample the work of (mostly) well-published authors, if you’re in the market for a potential new favorite. It’s a good way to have quality reading material when your time or attention span is short. And it’s a good way to realize that the majority of short mystery stories are written by middle-aged white guys.
  
  Twenty stories in all, some more adventure or thriller than mystery. That said, six stories stood out for me for their transportive setting or for unusual point of view.
  
  “Banana Triangle Six” by Louis Bayard places the reader inside the slipped-gear mind of a dementia patient, visited by a (perhaps) new doctor who brings home a decision the patient has forgotten he made.
  
  “Y Is for Yangchuan Lizard” by Andrew Bourelle plays the craving an exotic new drug brings against the profit and violence of those who would traffic in it, with multiple double crosses.
  
  Michael Bracken’s “Smoked” tells the tale of a witness protection relocatee outed by his good cooking, and defended by his best customer and his sharp-shooting girlfriend.
  
  Charlaine Harris’ “Small Signs” presents two strong female characters, and asks what happens when the top four directors of an off-the-grid/under-the-radar survivalist school are pitted against one another.
  
  “PX Christmas” by Martin Limón transports the reader to Seoul, to ride along with two U.S. Army investigators tracking down a missing army wife and busting heads along the way.
  
  Most chilling of all is Scott Loring Sanders’ “Waiting on Joe,” detailing one casual crime of passion with more to come.
  
• 
  Connie

  These short stories were a change of genre for me necessitated by it being a required read for my American mysteries class. Though skeptical as I had become accustomed to character development and plot evolving over many pages, I was in awe of these writers' ability to deliver characters the reader cared about and intriguing plots with a punch in a succinct fashion.
  
  The chapter offered by Lee Child, Too Much Time, resonated with me unaware of the Netflix series 'Reacher" based on his book which I, consequently, viewed. To my surprise, it followed the storyline closely which pleased me. It was interesting to find out in author's notes that Child himself was, in fact, very happy with this work- to such a degree- he considered it "one of the best things I had ever done." My other favorites included the work of Alan Orloff Rule Number One which I found entertaining and suDylan The Aperx Predator again for its ability to surprise the reader, Scott Loring Sanders' Waiting on Joe and the initial story, Banana Triangle Six by Louis Bayard.
  
  Even if you are not a mystery fan, I think you will find these stories thought provoking and intriguing. The collection offers a wonderful way to learn the style of many authors in a truncated fashion. That this particular grouping was the work of Louise Penny, need I say more? These twenty were selected among the thousands published in 2018. These front runners deserve to have made the cut! This book is a gem.