A review by lovelyandmorbid
The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 by Elizabeth George, Otto Penzler
3.0
all stories averaged: 2.8
I am trying to expand my horizons with mystery but I had a few structural issues 1) mystery is a very broad genre and I don't like all that it encompasses. 2) as addressed in the introduction (red flag) my fave subgenre, detective fiction, is less present because they rely on longform narrative. 3) short stories kind of don't work in general with a lot of these? Half the stories fell into two camps: either they set up a story really well, and then it would end feeling like a first chapter rather then a complete story or nothing would happen at all but it would be vaguely creepy so it technically counted as mystery?
This was my first short story collection, so im giving short stories and this series another shot. Already bought 2017 collection. Then I'll know if its the editor, the guest editor, the genre of short stories or short stories in general?
I am trying to expand my horizons with mystery but I had a few structural issues 1) mystery is a very broad genre and I don't like all that it encompasses. 2) as addressed in the introduction (red flag) my fave subgenre, detective fiction, is less present because they rely on longform narrative. 3) short stories kind of don't work in general with a lot of these? Half the stories fell into two camps: either they set up a story really well, and then it would end feeling like a first chapter rather then a complete story or nothing would happen at all but it would be vaguely creepy so it technically counted as mystery?
This was my first short story collection, so im giving short stories and this series another shot. Already bought 2017 collection. Then I'll know if its the editor, the guest editor, the genre of short stories or short stories in general?