The American mystery story is, in some quarters, regarded as the redheaded stepchild of literature. It is grudgingly brought along to parties, convenient as a target for an angry cuff, and impossible to ignore. Debates of its value as a literary genre have raged across the century and both sides of the Atlantic --- though the whole issue should have been laid to rest by Raymond Chandler's essay, "The Simple Art of Murder." Although the fortunes of the genre have waxed and waned, however, authors have kept writing and readers have kept reading. It accordingly was inevitable that a volume of THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES OF THE CENTURY would come to be. What was hardly inevitable, however, was that such a compilation volume would be as brilliant, as classic, as damn near perfect as this one is.

Let's start off with the choice of editor: Tony Hillerman, he of the understated Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee novels. I never would have thought of him as an editor for such an undertaking. Yet, who is better qualified than Hillerman, an accomplished, articulate writer of the genre who is also a longtime fan of it. And let's give a tip of the hat as well to Otto Penzler, who had the foresight to select Hillerman as the editor and then give him the final word as to what went into, and out of, the final selection. Then, let us move to Hillerman's selections. A lesser editor (me, for example) would have limited his selections to the stories of writers associated with the genre. There are plenty of them here. Both the MacDonalds ("The Homesick Buick" by John, "Gone Girl" by Ross), Chandler ("Red Wind"), Hammett, Kemelman, Westlake, Lehane...you get the idea; they all have stories here. There are also stories by authors who have strayed into the mysteries from a closely associated field (Harlan Ellison's "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," Stephen King's "Quitters, Inc.," Shirley Jackson, and new kid on the block Thomas Franklin, whose "Poachers" is as good as anything in here). But then...but then...Hillerman also includes stories by Damon Runyon, James Thurber, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner --- yes, William Faulkner --- and he's not being cute or clever by including stories by these authors, and these guys are not slumming by any means. Hillerman simply and unabashedly did his job --- he picked the best American mystery stories of the century, no matter what genre or what author they happened to spring from.

Is there room to quibble here? Sure, though it would only be closet-space. Every story in here certainly deserves to be in here. A Father Brown story --- pick one, any one --- would have belonged too. And, although I am sure modesty forbade him, Hillerman could have included one of his own stories in here as well without breaking a sweat. Again, however, it is difficult to argue with Hillerman's selection. Every story, paragraph, sentence, and punctuation mark deserves to be here. Considering the length, the breadth, and the variety of the selection herein, as well as the scholarship that obviously went into the creation of such a work, THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES OF THE CENTURY is, itself, deserving of the title of one of the best anthologies of the century.

   --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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