Hard Luck Penny, by Scott McKinnon

 "Hard Luck Penny," by Scott McKinnon, in The Yard, February 15, 2026.

I think this is the first time a first story made my best-of list since 2023. 

“So,” Penny says, “do you guys get a commission every time you flash a weapon, or is it a contractual obligation?”

Penny has been kidnapped.  She doesn't seem to be taking very seriously. 

The three bad guys work for Moe and Moe is mad at her cousin.

Penny stares up at him. “Let me guess, bad Yelp review?”

Being suspenseful and funny at the same time is a good trick.  Penny and McKinnon pull it off.

The Right to Lose, by Wil Medearis

"The Right to Lose," by Wil Medearis, in Tennis Noir, edited by John Shepphird, Level Best Books, 2026.

It's unusual when my best-of-the-week twice in a row is back-to-back stories from the same source, but here we are.

A man, down on his luck, meets a beautiful, rich woman, who convinces him to break the law.

Sound familiar?  It is the basic plot of Noir Fiction.  To make it memorable an author has to come up with something new.  Medearis succeeds. 

Our down-on-his-luck guy is Millar, who was a tennis pro but he didn't succeed and now he isa tennis pro at a country club. "The status of my preferred sport was clear, third in line behind golf and single malt scotch."

 The beautiful woman is Angie, a thirty-year-old woman who has moved back in with her parents who live at the club.  She has ben systematically robbing the houses of her neighbors. "To Angie, it was all psychological, or political, I couldn't keep it straight, her smoldering resentment."

Now she wants to make her biggest heist ever and she needs Millar's help.  He doesn't want to do it, but ne really needs the  money.

So far, so standard noir.  But there is a clever surprise waiting for Millar and for us.  

The Summer Tournament, by Jason Starr

 "The Summer Tournament," by Jason Starr, in Tennis Noir, edited by John Shepphird, Level Best Books, 2026.

Ah, the first anthology of the year.  How refreshing.   

Most mystery stories center on plot.  Some on dialog.  This one is mostly a character study. 

Alan, the narrator, is a psychotherapist, a husband and a father.  He also likes to sleep with other men's wives.  But his real interest - obsession, really - is tennis.  

It is the late seventies and Alan and his family spend each summer at a tennis camp in the Catskills. Alan is determined to  win the singles championship  for a third time in a row.  And everything, everything, has to bend to his obsession.

"I was a narcissist, but this was one of my best qualities, actually. It meant I was in touch with my needs and desires and had the courage to love myself.  What was so wrong with that?" 

This story is a  lovely combination of psychobabble,  twisted justification, and sports madness.

 

El Artista Fugitivo, by Tom Larsen

 "El Artista Fugitivo," by Tom Larsen, in Black Cat Weekly, #227, 2026.

This is the second story by Larsen to make this list, and it stars the same character.  

Wilson Salinas is a private detective in his native Ecuador.  This story takes place not long after he sets up his business after leaving Seattle where he worked as a chef until alcohol got the better of him.  

His U.S. experience helped him get a new client, an American P.I. named Cabrera who  wants him to find a yankee who has disappeared.  Jefferson Bushnell is an eighty-year-old painter.  Why does Cabrera want to find him? Because Bushnell got the detective's twenty-year-old niece pregnant.

If that sounds suspicious Salinas agrees with you.  But he takes the case and, as usual, finds out that it is not nearly as straightforward as it seems.

This is a fun private eye story.  I have to say there is a goof in the storytelling  that someone should have caught. It doesn't affect the  plot but it is certain to annoy alert readers.

 

Best of 2025

 

I forgot to mention that last week I put up my best stories of the year list at SleuthSayers.  This is year #17, and 18 tales made the list.