The Long and the Short of It

 

Two new collections/anthologies of crime fiction short stories were released back-to-back this month, one on October 7th and the other on October 8th, which seems fitting somehow. The first is Hardly Knew Her: Stories by Laura Lippman, and the second is The Best American Mystery Stories 2008, edited by George Pelecanos.

Bookgasm has a review of Lippman's collection, and true to the blog's title, gives it a glowing review, "This collection of 16 short stories and one original novella is among the finest you’re likely to read this year."  It's divided into four sections, "Girls Gone Wild"; a Baltimore-themed section; stories based in other cities, mostly taken from stories the author has written for the Akashic Noir series, and the novella "Scratch a Woman."

Although the reviewer, Alan Cranis, makes the statement that "Short-story collections from established novelists are not usually good introductions to their work. But here again, Lippman is an exception to the rule," I'm not sure I agree. For one thing, we don't have enough novelists producing short-story collections to make a large-scale comparison, and those that have produced anthologies (either themselves or in edited versions) often offer a good introduction to the author's protagonists, style, and body of work. Here are a few representative examples:

• John Dickson Carr (The Men Who Explained Miracles)
• Agatha Christie (Poirot Investigates) 
• Erle Stanley Gardner (The Casebook of Sidney Zoom) ed. by Bill Pronzini
• Patricia Highsmith (Mermaids on the Golf Course)
• Stuart Kaminsky (Hidden and Other Stories)
• Peter Lovesey (Butchers)
• Dennis Lynds writing as Michael Collins (Slot-Machine Kelly)
• John D. MacDonald (End of the Tiger and Other Stories)
• Sara Paretsky (Windy City Blues)
• Ellis Peters (The Trinity Cat and Other Mysteries, ed. Martin Edwards & Sue Feder)
• Ellery Queen(Dannay/Lee) (The Adventures of Ellery Queen)
• Ian Rankin (Rebus - The Early Years)
• Ruth Rendell (The Fallen Curtain)
• Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Views the Body)
• Rex Stout (Justice Ends at Home, and Other Stories, ed. John McAleer)

The other new anthology, The Best American Mystery Stories 2008, was reviewed by Jon L. Breen of Mystery Scene who has a few complaints--namely, like last year's edition, there is a general lack of variety and a dearth of real detective stories, and that literary magazines are a more frequent source of stories than genre publications (he goes so far as to suggest that a better title might be "Best Mainstream Short Stories that Happen to Concern a Crime"). But Breen also has praise, noting that while the mood of the stories is "almost unrelentingly grim and downbeat, the variety of background and approaches is considerable," and is complimentary of such stories as Kyle Minor’s structural experiment "A Day Meant to Do Less," which he calls " extraordinarily affecting and, in a unique way, terrifying."

Regardless, praise must be given to Lippman and editor Pelecanos (and Otto Penzler as publisher) for helping to continue and promote short crime fiction in an era when the examples of and venues for the genre seem to be shinking every day -- sadly, this year alone, Demolition, Mouth Full of Bullets, and Hard Luck Stories have all called it quits.