I list the best fifteen mystery stories of the year today at SleuthSayers

"Blunt Instruments," by James Powell, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January 2014. I say this with great fondness a...

"The Confidante," by Diana Dixon Healy, in Best New England Crime Stories 2014: Stone Cold, edited by Mark Ammons, Katherine F...

"Downhill Slide," by Jeff Howe, in Moon Shot, edited by J. Alan Hartman, Untreed Books, 2013. This book is a collection of scie...

"Full Moon," by Lauren Davis, in Dallas Noir, edited by David Hale Smith, Akashic Press, 2013. For those who came late, here...

"Hole-Man," by Matt Bondurant, in Dallas Noir, edited by David Hale Smith, Akashic Press, 2013. A nice, gloomy tale about the i...

"The Hotel des Muti lée s," by Jim Williams, in Knife Edge Anthology, Marble City Publishing, 2013. Earlier this week I read a...

"Acting Lessons," by Amanda Stern, in The Marijuana Chronicles, edited by Jonathan Santlofer, Akashic Press, 2013. So: what...

"The Waverley Knees," by Ray Banks, in Noir Nation 2, edited by Eddie Vega, 2013. What I like best about this story, I suppos...

"Saving Bessie's Worms," by Lynne Murphy, in Mesdames of Mayhem: Thirteen, edited by M.H. Callway, Donna Carrick, and Joan ...