The Best American Mystery Stories 1997 — Houghton Mifflin Company

For many years, some of the most vital, creative, and exciting fiction published in America has been in the field of mystery, crime, and suspense. Now Robert B. Parker and Otto Penzler - both Edgar winners - have assembled the best that 1996 had to offer: twenty terrific, titillating tales from such masters of the genre as Elmore Leonard, Elizabeth George, James Crumley, Jonathan Kellerman, and Andrew Klavan, newcomers such as Brad Watson, and well-known literary writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Malone.