Crime Stories

ALTHOUGH scores of them are published every year, mystery anthologies are harder to assemble than you might think. Maybe it was easier for 1920s editors who had to contend with a smaller, albeit rich, universe populated by Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, among others, from the 19th and early 20th centuries. As the number of writers expanded, later anthologists narrowed their focus -- to the P.I. novel, the police procedural or standout work by women, gay and lesbian or African American crime writers.

But in recent years, mystery anthologies with original premises are like variations of those darned green bean casseroles -- there's only so far you can take them. Houghton Mifflin's annual "Best American Mystery Stories" are reliable exceptions as is small press Akashic Books' city-themed Noir series, including this year's "Los Angeles Noir," which gives readers a far-ranging, multicultural view of crime from Los Feliz to Belmont Shore. But after reading the fifth single-sport mystery collection or the detective anthology featuring White House pets (sad to say), a reader can become a little jaded. |Read more|