In her Introduction to Simply the Best Mysteries (1998), Janet Hitchings gives a short history of the Edgar Awards and talks about the winners in the short story category. And, no surprise, many of those Edgar winners are represented by the stories in this excellent anthology.
I have many favorites here. “The Blessington Method” by Stanley Ellin shows how a solution to one problem creates another problem. One of my favorite writers, Donald E. Westlake, presents the reader with a ghost…and a series of surprises. Clark Howard blends music and murder in “Horn Man.” Jack Ritchie uses diversion in “The Absence of Emily” to the narrator’s benefit.
Many of these Edgar Award winning stories have appeared in other anthologies, but Simply the Best Mysteries brings them all together in one wonderful volume. Do you see any of your favorite writers here? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Janet Hutchings — ix
The house party / Stanley Ellin — 1
Dream no more / Philip MacDonald — 21
The Blessington method / Stanley Ellin — 47
And already lost / Charlotte Armstrong — 61
The affair at Lahore Cantonment / Avram Davidson — 77
The terrapin / Patricia Highsmith — 91
H as in homicide / Lawrence Treat — 105
Goodbye, Pops / Joe Gores — 119
The purple shroud / Joyce Harrington — 127
The fallen curtain / Ruth Rendell — 141
Like a terrible scream / Etta Revesz — 153
Chance after chance / Thomas Walsh — 163
The cloud beneath the eaves / Barbara Owens — 177
This is death / Donald E. Westlake — 191
Horn man / Clark Howard — 205
The absence of Emily / Jack Ritchie — 219
The new girl friend / Ruth Rendell — 231
The Anderson boy / Joseph Hansen — 243
Elvis lives / Lynne Barrett — 272
Candles in the rain / Doug Allyn — 287
When your breath freezes / Kathleen Dougherty — 319
The judge’s boy / Jean B. Cooper– 337
And two by Rendell reflects her talent for this all all forms of fiction.
Patti, I’m always impressed by editors who aren’t afraid to include a writer more than once in their anthology. Ruth Rendell was better known for her novels, but she was also a gifted short story writer.
Yes, Gores and Howard and Allyn and Ellin, but also like Westlake and most of the others.
Jeff, this anthology of Edgar winners and some runner-ups provides plenty of reading pleasure!
Hutchings! Not a Rendell fan at all! Still, lots of good stuff here!
Bob, SIMPLY THE BEST MYSTERIES is one of my favorite anthologies. You’re right about lots of good stuff here!
Interestingly, this seems to be one of the Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine anthologies that doesn’t label itself as such.
Those published by “outside” publishers often did “disguise” themselves, such as Harold Q. Masur’s one anthology of all AHMM stories, after the Random House sequence of eclectic-source AH PRESENTS: anthologies had ended, for an instant remainder publisher, Galahad Book, The Best of Mystery: 63 Short Stories Chosen by the Master of Suspense (1980). By 1998, the EQ ANTHOLOGY issues Davis had published were long gone.
Todd, the EQ Anthologies followed the curve of magazine subscriptions: down, down, down. Television had a huge impact.
Well, Davis relied heavily–eventually too heavily–on Publisher’s Clearing House. Most of their titles did OK with renewals, but a Sylvia Porter personal finance magazine was a huge and expensive flop, and that’s why Davis isn’t around any longer…they managed to place their fiction magazines with their old partners at Dell, who still were in the magazine business mostly with crossword and horoscope magazines…which they sold en masse to Penny Press/Crosstown Publications, though it’s a pity Dell’s brief experiment with LOUIS L’AMOUR WESTERN MAGAZINE didn’t go over to Penny Press as well (hey, UPD Publications tried reviving some of the closed titles when they bought GALAXY and IF, after all…though the revived WORLDS OF TOMORROW and WORLDS OF FANTASY didn’t last too long).
TV and magazines don’t have too much effect in terms of mutual cancellation. Magazines and paperbacks in the late ’40s, and magazines and webzines in recent years, on the other hand…
Todd, I’m waiting for our local newspapers to go completely digital. The costs of printing coupled with the cost of gas for the delivery folks soar each week!
Jeff, that’s a very astute observation!
Some lovely chestnuts and near-chestnuts there…I’ve certainly read at least half and seen a number of them repeatedly. Almost surprising that Hoch isn’t here with “The Oblong Room”, or JD MacDonald with “The Lonesome Buick”…I’d pick this up to catch the unfamiliar ones…
Todd, you can find SIMPLY THE BEST MYSTERIES online at reasonable prices. And, I’m sure your local Library has it, too.
Oh, it’s pretty remarkable what our town’s library, divorced from the local area’s library consortium, doesn’t have, including interlibrary loan service with Anyone else.
Todd, our Library system can pretty much get any book from anywhere. Plus, the librarians are willing to buy about 95% of the books I recommend.
I am wary of such titles but since you praise it highly, I’ll search for this book.
Neeru, SIMPLY THE BEST MYSTERIES is an accurate depiction of what you’ll find between those bookcovers!