The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

by C. J. Box

  * * *

  Michael Cebula’s fiction has appeared in a variety of publications, including Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, ThugLit, Midwestern Gothic, Mystery Weekly Magazine, and the anthology Murder Mayhem Short Stories. His story “The Gunfighters” was selected as an honorable mention in The Best American Mystery Stories 2019. He lives in the Midwest with his wife, Sheryl, and his sons, Silas and Samuel.

  • I can’t write a short story until I know exactly what the first lines are, and once I put them down, they don’t change. The opening lines of “Second Cousins” bounced around in my head for several months, but other projects got in the way before I could sit down and write them. Once I did, the rest of the story came fast. One of the things I find most fascinating about fiction—​or real life, for that matter—​are people who generally think of themselves as fundamentally good or normal discovering, to the contrary, exactly what they are capable of when life demands it. Hopefully “Second Cousins” explores a shade of that in an interesting and entertaining way.

  The managing editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine under the editorship of Cathleen Jordan during the late 1980s, Brian Cox is now a newspaper editor in Detroit. He has received a handful of state and national press awards for his reporting and opinion writing. In 2017 his dramatic play Clutter made its world premiere at Theatre Nova in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and went on to earn two Wilde Awards, for best new script and best performance–original production. As the artistic director of PencilPoint TheatreWorks in southeast Michigan, Cox produces “Snapshots: Stories of Life,” a live storytelling event in which people share true stories from their lives based on a personal photograph. He made his crossword puzzle debut when his puzzle “Knock-Knock” was published in the July 26, 2017, edition of the New York Times. He and his wife, Dana, have two children, Elijah and Annie.

  • “The Surrogate Initiative” started out as a concept story after a particularly well-targeted advertisement came across my phone, prompting me to think, Wow, they are getting disturbingly precise at figuring out my tastes and interests, which led me to consider the idea that technology—​AI in particular—​cannot be far from being able to simulate an individual’s decisionmaking process and accurately predict that person’s judgments, and I started speculating what that might eventually look like. Jury duty struck me as a suitable environment to explore the question, and I became intrigued by the challenge of writing a science fiction legal thriller.

  I ran the concept by a few lawyer friends of mine, and they seemed intrigued enough by the idea to buy me a beer and offer some insights, and I became involved in building the story out. I particularly enjoyed imagining Detroit in the not-too-distant future.

  As the plot developed and the character of Cassandra Howard emerged, I sensed loneliness in her that I didn’t understand, and it was through considering her loneliness that the special relationship with her father formed, which led me to this larger idea that the technological pursuit of digitally capturing our identities—​our personhood—​could result in an approximation of immortality, which, I realized with a forehead slap, I had read about years and years ago in a book by Frank J. Tipler called The Physics of Immortality, large swaths of which I hadn’t understood but had nonetheless found fascinating.

  Having lost my mother a few years ago, I know Cassandra’s ache to have her father back, and I wonder how many of us who have felt that loss, if presented with the opportunity she has to resurrect her parent, would make the same choice at the end. The temptation and emotional reward would be too great for me, I fear.

  * * *

  Doug Crandell has received awards from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kellogg Writers Series, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers, and the Jentel Artist Residency. One of his stories appears in Pushcart Prize 2017. NPR’s Glynn Washington chose Doug’s story for the 2017 Page to Screen Award. A short story was awarded the 2017 Glimmer Train Family Matters Fiction Award, and stories are forthcoming in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Sun, and the Saturday Evening Post. Doug has been appointed as public service faculty at the Institute on Human Development and Disability at the University of Georgia. He is the author of four novels, two memoirs, and a true crime book about Santa Claus, Georgia.

  • I grew up on farms in Indiana, places that were owned by landlords. My folks were called cash renters, a configuration that’s similar to sharecropping. On one of those properties, nestled among corn and soybean fields, is a real water feature named Shanty Falls. As a kid I played there, and when we left the place for another, the falls stayed with me. Those types of geographies can follow a writer for a long time, and I was somewhat dismayed that I’d never used it as a backdrop for fiction before. That explains the inspiration for the setting.

  I’ve had quite a few inquiries about the ending of the story, which I will attempt to explain here. When I was in college, my best friend since kindergarten had traveled to the campus to spend the weekend with me, and we found several parties to attend, all of which had cheap keg beer. My friend had always been a bit careless with his own safety, sometimes getting into fights. In a crowded house party, from across the room I could see he was flirting with someone’s girlfriend, and the guy, someone we all knew liked to fight, decided to beat up my friend. People scattered, and I rushed to help while others pulled the guy off my best friend. When I got a good look at him and helped him to the car, it was clear he’d need stitches.

  After he got almost a dozen stitches above his right eye and lip, I took him home to my rundown apartment. He was in pain but slept a lot. I found myself angry, with that kind of deep-down need for revenge. But I’m Quaker, and that provided a conundrum. I stewed. By 4 a.m. I found out where the guy lived and drove there, knocked on the door. His roommates roused him. I told the guy that my friend he’d beaten was in a coma, on life support. I told him the cops had asked me for names of others at the party. I told him that my friend’s parents were bringing their lawyer, flying in from Chicago, arriving in the next hour. I told him he’d better run.

  I’d struck him with lies, with fiction, with an invention. I made up a story in real life thirty years ago to get payback, then used the technique again as the closer for Shanty Falls. It feels true to me.

  * * *

  David Dean’s short stories have appeared regularly in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, as well as numerous anthologies, since 1990. His stories have been nominated for the Shamus, Barry, and Derringer Awards, and “Ibrahim’s Eyes” won the EQMM Readers Award for 2007, as did “The Duelist” for 2019. His story “Tomorrow’s Dead” was a finalist for the Edgar for best short story of 2011. He is a retired chief of police in New Jersey and once served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. His novels, The Thirteenth Child, Starvation Cay, and The Purple Robe, are all available through Amazon.

  • “The Duelist” is what’s called historical fiction, and yes, I do get the irony. I have written but a few, and I only wrote those because the stories wouldn’t have worked set in modern times. So, too, did “The Duelist” demand a historical context, because of its plot, its characters, and its language. In many ways the story is as much about language—​what is being said, and how, as well as what is not said but lies beneath—​as it is about the violence that serves to frame the story and provide its impetus.

  What I can state is that the story is one about deception and truth, vengeance and justice, bravery and cowardice, love and loss. But it’s mostly about bullying, and that’s why I wrote it, though I didn’t think of it at the time. It was only later that I recognized my motivation. Most of us have experienced being bullied or made afraid by someone at some time in our lives. I am no exception. In fact, looking back on my life, I suspect that being bullied had a lot to do with my choosing to be a police officer for twenty-five years. I wanted to protect people. I don’t like bullies. My guess is that you don’t either. If that’s the case, “The Duelist” may satisfy you. />
  A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is a number-one bestselling author whose novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the New York Times, the Times of London, Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and have been translated into twenty-five languages. He has served two terms as the president of the Mystery Writers of America.

  The author of forty-three novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he has received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize. He has been awarded the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association and the Nero Award. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. Solitude Creek and The Cold Moon were both given the number-one ranking by Kono Mystery Ga Sugoi! in Japan. The Cold Moon was also named Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan.

  Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy. The Strand Magazine also has presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Deaver has been nominated for eight Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony, a Shamus, and a Gumshoe.

  • I’ve always had an affection for reading short fiction, and I’ve learned much about writing from the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Joyce Carol Oates, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ray Bradbury, among many others. I also thoroughly enjoy writing short stories. I’ve always felt that all storytelling has as its most important goal emotionally engaging the audience to the greatest degree possible. I want to be captivated by art and entertainment, not merely intrigued or interested.

  In long-form fiction this level of intensity is accomplished through creating complex, utterly real characters (good and bad) and intersecting, fast-paced plots. Without the luxury of length, however, how can short fiction achieve such emotional intensity?

  “Security” is a perfect example of how I try to do just that: I grab readers with one device only: a shocking twist (or, ideally, two or three) at the end. I’m the illusionist, the sleight-of-hand artist, juggling props and displaying cards and keeping their eyes (in my case, minds) from seeing the truth—​until, at the very end, it’s OMG, so that’s what was going on!

  “Security” was part of an anthology called Odd Partners, in which we authors were asked to pair disparate protagonists, or antagonists, put them in a pressure cooker, and see what would happen. My story involves a streetwise woman security guard and a by-the-book law enforcer whose job is to protect an ambitious political candidate who doesn’t make their job very easy, to put it mildly.

  I spent about a month outlining the story (I outline everything I write), getting the pieces to come together—​especially making sure the ending would be completely unexpected yet completely fair. Only after it was planned out did I write the prose. I pounded out “Security” in two or three days. I’d write more here, but I’m hesitant to, for fear I’d give away some of the surprises.

  Besides, as any illusionist will tell you, one doesn’t talk about a magic trick; one performs it. Enjoy!

  * * *

  John M. Floyd’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, the 2015 and 2018 editions of The Best American Mystery Stories, and many other publications. A former air force captain and IBM systems engineer, he is also an Edgar nominee, a three-time Derringer Award winner, a recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the author of eight books. He and his wife, Carolyn, live in Mississippi.

  • If I recall, my first inspiration for “Rhonda and Clyde” came on a bitterly cold day. (We don’t have many of those here in the South, thank God.) It probably put me in a Fargo frame of mind, because when I created Wyoming sheriff Marcie Ingalls that morning, the image of the movie character Marge Gunderson sort of jumped into my head, and it stayed there throughout the planning of the story. That choice of a protagonist wasn’t surprising; I’ve always liked stories about strong and smart women in law enforcement, and the way their colleagues (and the criminals) often make the mistake of underestimating them.

  I also remember wanting to (1) give her a deputy she didn’t particularly like and (2) make the villains a husband-wife team, maybe because I especially enjoy writing dialogue and I knew both those partnerships would give me a lot of opportunity for that. This line of thinking was a bit different for me, because I usually start with the plot and only then come up with the characters. In this case I created my players first and then dreamed up something for them to do, with some twists and reversals along the way. Anyhow, once I had all that in mind, I sat down and wrote the story in a couple of days’ time—​and it turned out to be one of my favorites.

  Maybe an occasional cold snap isn’t a bad thing . . .

  * * *

  Tom Franklin is the author of a collection of stories, Poachers, the title story of which won an Edgar Award. His novels include Hell at the Breech, Smonk, and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, which won the L.A. Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller, the UK’s Gold Dagger for Best Novel, and the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Fiction. His most recent novel is The Tilted World, cowritten with his wife, Beth Ann Fennelly. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, and teaches in the MFA Program at Ole Miss.

  • I wrote this story because the great Lawrence Block asked me to, for his terrific anthology From Sea to Stormy Sea. Block had writers choose an American painter (from a list) and then select one of his or her paintings (from another list) and go from there. My painter was John Hull, and the painting is called This Much I Know. I’d not heard of this artist, but the picture he did was rather quiet, muted in color, depicting a small house and a couple of cars, bystanders, cops. It seemed like an “after” shot—​something terrible had happened in that house, and I began wondering what the “before” was. The story came quickly after that.

  * * *

  Richard Helms is a retired forensic psychologist and college professor. He has been nominated six times for the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Derringer Award, winning it twice; five times for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award; twice for the International Thriller Writers Thriller Award, with one win; and once for the Mystery Readers International Macavity Award. He is also a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, along with other periodicals and anthologies, and has recently written three screenplays for independent filmmakers in North Carolina. A former member of the board of directors of Mystery Writers of America and the former president of the Southeast Regional Chapter of MWA (SEMWA), he was presented with the SEMWA Magnolia Award for service to the chapter in 2017. “See Humble and Die” is his first appearance in The Best American Mystery Stories.

  • I’ve lived in the South all my life. Though a greater portion of those sixty-five years has been spent in cities like Charlotte, Charleston, and Atlanta, I have always been fascinated by small towns. In fact, for twenty-three years—​until we downsized and moved back to Charlotte in 2016—​we lived in a town so small it had neither a police force nor a post office of its own. Law enforcement was handled by the county Sheriff’s Department, and our mail arrived courtesy of a post office in a town ten miles away. We were one step removed from being a 1950s-style rural route.

  Living in a small town is a strange mix. On one hand, neighbors tend to be closer and to support one another better than in a city. The downside is the potential for simple arguments to turn into bitter, decades-long blood feuds or, in the worst case, to erupt overnight in
violent retribution. Resentments simmer and run long and deep in places where you cannot escape or hide from disputes.

  My captivation with small-town life led me to devour Bill Crider’s series of Texas-based Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels. I finally met Bill at the Shamus Awards in St. Louis several years back. We developed a casual friendship that I dearly wish had been closer and of longer duration. Bill was gracious enough to provide a cover blurb for one of my small-town Judd Wheeler crime novels (Older Than Goodbye), and I am indebted to him for his support. I last talked with Bill at Bouchercon in Toronto, only months before he passed away. When I heard that Michael Bracken was editing a book of Texas private eye stories, I endeavored to produce a story that would make Bill proud. With the inclusion of “See Humble and Die” in this collection, I hope that mission was accomplished.

  * * *

  Ryan David Jahn is the author of seven novels, including Good Neighbors, which won the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Dagger, and The Dispatcher, which was named by the Financial Timesas a top-ten crime novel of the year. He lives with his wife, Jessica, and two daughters, Francine and Matilda, in Louisville, Kentucky.

  • My father killed himself in March 2004 while living in an RV park in Bullhead City, Arizona. I hadn’t talked to him in eight years, and don’t remember crying when I found out—​don’t remember feeling much of anything at all. It was just information, like reading the obituary of someone you’ve never met in the morning paper. A stranger died and I was supposed to be torn up about it or something, but I wasn’t. I got a box of his things, including pictures he’d taken in Vietnam, his medals, and letters he’d written to his own father. I read about his platoon taking mortar fire; I read about a single leg lying in the dirt and how disconcerting it was to see it detached from a body.