The Best American Mystery Stories : 2002
by James Ellroy (Editor & Introduction), Otto Penzler (Series Editor)
The Best American Mystery Stories (2002), Best American (2002)
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THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction in the genre, and this is the third volume to be published in the UK. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognised as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make show more the BEST AMERICAN series the most respected - and most popular - of its kind. THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 3 will thrill fans from all reaches of the genre. This year, bestselling and acclaimed author James Ellroy lends his talent to the series, offering pieces from the likes of Robert B. Parker, Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Connelly. show lessTags
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James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L. A. Quartet novels - "The Black Dahlia", "The Big Nowhere", "L. A. Confidential", & "White Jazz" - were international best-sellers. His novel "American Tabloid" was Time magazine's Novel of the Year for 1995; his memoir, "My Dark Places", was a "Time" Best Book of the Year & a "New Yorker Times" show more Notable Book for 1996. He lives in Kansas City. (Publisher Provided) James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles, California on March 4, 1948. His parents were divorced and he moved in with his father after his mother was murdered in 1958. The story of his mother's unsolved murder would become the basis for his 1996 nonfiction work entitled My Dark Places. He attended Fairfax High School, where he sent Nazi pamphlets to girls he liked and criticized JFK, while advocating the reinstatement of slavery. He was eventually expelled for preaching Nazism in his English class. He joined the army after his expulsion from school, but after realizing that he did not belong there, he faked a stutter and convinced the army psychologist that he was not mentally fit for combat. After three months, he received a dishonorable discharge and returned home. His father died soon thereafter. He was thrown in juvenile hall for stealing a steak from the local market. When he got out, his father's friend became his guardian, but by the age of eighteen, he was back on the streets. He was sleeping outside, stealing, drinking and experimenting with drugs. It wasn't long before he was thrown in jail for breaking into a vacant apartment. When he got out of jail, he started a job at an adult book store, his addictions growing progressively larger. He was misusing the drug Benzedrex, a sinus inhalent which nearly drove him to Schizophrenia and his drinking was ruining his health. He contracted pneumonia twice as well as a condition called post-alchohol brain syndrome. Fearing for his sanity, he joined AA, became sober and found a job as a golf caddy. At the age of 30, he wrote his first novel entitled Brown's Requiem, which was published in 1981. His other works include Clandestine, Blood on the Moon, Because the Night, Suicide Hill, Killer on the Road, and The Cold Six Thousand. His works The Black Dahlia and L. A. Confidential were adapted into feature films. Ellroy's title, Perfidia, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2014. 030i show less
Otto Penzler owns the Mysterious Bookshop in New York & founded the Mysterious Press & Otto Penzler Books. He has written & edited several books, including the Edgar-winning "Encyclopedia of Mystery & Detection". (Bowker Author Biography)
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- Canonical title
- The Best American Mystery Stories : 2002
- Original title
- The Best American Mystery Stories : 2002
- Alternate titles
- The Best American Mystery Stories III; The Best American Mystery Stories 3; It Is Raining in Bejucal (by John Biguenet) (by John Biguenet); Two-Bagger (by Michael Connelly) (by Michael Connelly); The Fix (by Thomas H. Cook) (by Thomas H. Cook); Summa Mathematica (by Sean Doolittle) (by Sean Doolittle) (show all 22); Man Kills Wife, Two Dogs (by Michael Downs) (by Michael Downs); A Family Game (by Brendan Dubois) (by Brendan Dubois); The Blue Mirror (by David Edgerley Gates) (by David Edgerley Gates); Inscrutable (by Joe Gores) (by Joe Gores); The Championship of Nowhere (by James Grady) (by James Grady); The Cobalt Blues (by Clark Howard) (by Clark Howard); Sometimes Something Goes Wrong (by Stuart M. Kaminsky) (by Stuart M. Kaminsky); The Mule Rustlers (by Joe R. Lansdale) (by Joe R. Lansdale); Maniac Loose (by Michael Malone) (by Michael Malone); Counting (by Fred Melton) (by Fred Melton); You Don't Know Me (by Annette Meyers) (by Annette Meyers); The High School Sweetheart (by Joyce Carol Oates) (by Joyce Carol Oates); Harlem Nocturne (by Robert B. Parker) (by Robert B. Parker); Midnight Emissions (by F.X. Toole) (by F.X. Toole); A Lepidopterist's Tale (by Daniel Waterman) (by Daniel Waterman); The Copper Kings (by Scott Wolven) (by Scott Wolven)
- Original publication date
- 2002
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Mystery
- DDC/MDS
- 813.087208 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English By type Genre fiction Adventure fiction Mystery fiction Collections
- LCC
- PS648 .D4 .B46 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Collections of American literature Prose (General)
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 172
- Popularity
- 190,563
- Rating
- (3.72)
- Languages
- English, French, Italian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 7
- UPCs
- 2
- ASINs
- 1
