The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories, 1992
(1992)An anthology of stories edited by Edward D Hoch
Publisher's Weekly
This consistently entertaining collection of short stories selected from mystery magazines and anthologies opens propitiously with Edgar Award nominee Doug Allyn's ''Sleeper,'' the hard-hitting tale of a TV news camera operator probing the suspicious death of a Detroit auto mechanic. In the outstanding and inventive ''Punishment,'' set in St. Petersburg ca. 1867, Stuart Kaminsky resurrects none other than Dostoyevski's per web cheery and unnerving inspector, Porfiry Petrovich. Peter Lovesey's witty ''The Crime of Miss Oyster Brown'' tells of two inseparable, secretive, middle-aged sisters, one of whom inexplicably vanishes. In Wendy Hornsby's moving Edgar Award-winning ''Nine Sons,'' an elderly teacher reflects on the Depression-era death of the sole infant and sole daughter in a large immigrant family. Hoch offers his own engaging locked-room puzzle; the familiar voices of Ruth Rendell and Bill Pronzini are also included. Although weighted toward male authors--only three of the 12 stories here are by women--this diverting collection provides a fine sampling of mystery and suspense, from the humorous and bittersweet to the tragic.
Genre: Mystery
This consistently entertaining collection of short stories selected from mystery magazines and anthologies opens propitiously with Edgar Award nominee Doug Allyn's ''Sleeper,'' the hard-hitting tale of a TV news camera operator probing the suspicious death of a Detroit auto mechanic. In the outstanding and inventive ''Punishment,'' set in St. Petersburg ca. 1867, Stuart Kaminsky resurrects none other than Dostoyevski's per web cheery and unnerving inspector, Porfiry Petrovich. Peter Lovesey's witty ''The Crime of Miss Oyster Brown'' tells of two inseparable, secretive, middle-aged sisters, one of whom inexplicably vanishes. In Wendy Hornsby's moving Edgar Award-winning ''Nine Sons,'' an elderly teacher reflects on the Depression-era death of the sole infant and sole daughter in a large immigrant family. Hoch offers his own engaging locked-room puzzle; the familiar voices of Ruth Rendell and Bill Pronzini are also included. Although weighted toward male authors--only three of the 12 stories here are by women--this diverting collection provides a fine sampling of mystery and suspense, from the humorous and bittersweet to the tragic.
Genre: Mystery
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