Showing results by author "A. Y. Chao" in Mystery

In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.

The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run. An injured fighter turned bouncer seeks vengeance for his lost love. An assassin on his last job finds himself questioning his life choices and breaks all the rules to understand his final victim.

Meet Juniper Song, an under employed, 20-something, Raymond-Chandler-loving, Korean American woman from downtown LA. When a friend asks Song to carry out surveillance on his father, she figures she doesn't have anything better to do - plus she gets to indulge her Philip Marlowe fantasies. But barely half a day into playing private eye, someone has knocked her unconscious and left a dead body in the trunk of her car.

Juniper Song - private detective - has a talent for surveillance and for knowing when a client isn't telling her the whole story. Rubina Gasparian, Song's latest client, is worried about her cousin, who just happens to be carrying her baby as a surrogate. Something tells her she's been hired to do more than just follow a heavily pregnant 26-year-old around LA, and soon enough, Song finds herself caught in the dangerous underbelly of one of LA's biggest immigrant communities.

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by #1 New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Jess Walter and series editor Steph Cha.