Showing results by author "A. Y. Chao" in Thriller & Suspense

Grace Park and Shawn Mathews share a city - LA - but seemingly little else. Coming from different generations and very different communities, their paths wouldn't normally cross at all. As Grace battles confusion over her elder sister's estrangement from their Korean-immigrant parents, Shawn tries to help his cousin Ray readjust to city life after years spent in prison. But something in their past links these two families. As the city around them threatens to erupt into violence, echoing the worst days of the early 1990s, the lives of Grace and Shawn are set to collide.

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.

Juniper Song has a new gig: apprenticed to a private investigation firm in downtown LA, she's racking up hours following cheating spouses. When a NY artist hires her to keep an eye on her long-distance boyfriend in LA, Song has no problem tailing the guy - until a panicked late-night phone call has her racing to the iconic Roosevelt Hotel. There, in the aftermath of a wild party in its top-floor suite, she finds only two people left: the boyfriend and a Hollywood legend. Only one of them is still alive.

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.