The Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2021

De: Lee Child - editor and introduction, Otto Penzler - series editor

Narrado por: Matt Godfrey, Emily Sutton-Smith

Lee Child selects the 20 best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Stephen King, Sara Paretsky, and many more.

Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international best seller Lee Child has selected the 20 most suspenseful, most confounding, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

Includes stories by: Alison Gaylin, David Morrell, James Lee Burke, Joyce Carol Oates, Martin Edwards, Sara Paretsky, Stephen King, Sue Grafton (with a new, posthumously published work), and many more!

©2021 The Mysterious Press; Introduction copyright 2021 by Lee Child (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Generally Quality Stories

Some of the previous reviews were a bit negative but I enjoyed most of the stories and liked the added remarks. There don't seem many collections like this but I will read them.

Mysteries across all peoples and places

When presenting the “best” of a year’s contribution to this genre, the deciders found something for everyone. So many desperate folks out there inspiring tales where little victories keep them living, somehow. Does Art imitate life. Within these audio pages, it evidently does. Dietre

Great Selections

Variety of authors, styles and stories based in different time periods. Kept my interest.

Nice Selection

Nice selection of well read mystery stories. Some are quite memorable. Lee Child has a good eye for what appeals

Great story lines

Not crazy about narrators voice. Hard to decide who was talking during dialogue between characters

Too dark

The only problem with well-written stories is that they can be intensely evocative. By the time I got four hours into this collection, I was too depressed to finish the fifth story, and had to quit. I’ll never know if the last ten hours is easier. Sorry.

Unexpected

Some stories were very strange. And others most entertaining. Thank you mystery writers. and Thank you Audible.

Good stuff!

Loved it! Most appreciated the last story. Go goat! I do appreciate the chance to listen to listen to works by my favorite authors and sample those new to me.

Excellent Selections

I enjoyed all of the selections! Entertaining and keep me on the edge of my seat.

A fun collection of new short stories

I found this the other night when I was perusing the Audible website. I enjoy anthologies and there were some names that I really like so I was excited to start it.

First thing - there are a LOT of stories. You definitely get your monies worth. It was nice to listen to on audio because I could listen for a bit, turn it off, go to something else, and then come back to start another story.

As with all anthologies, there were some good stories and some really not so good. And..... a couple of ones that I wondered how the heck they made the cut.

Off the top of my head, my favorites were "30 and out" by Doug Allyn, "If you want something done right" by Sue Grafton, "the gift" by Allison Gaylin, and of course, "The Fifth Step" by Stephen King

The one I questioned was "Parole Hearing, California" by Joyce Carol Oates. I think it was one of those that you just had to be "something" to get. I don't know what the "it" is - cool, hip, forward thinking? I have no clue, I just know that it went completely over my head because I did not get it. At all.

But, I did enjoy the collection of stories.