Guest edited by S. A. Cosby, best known for Razorblade Tears, with series editor Steph Cha, author of the Juniper Song series, this weighty volume needs pride of place on every bedside table. For the insomniacs. For those who enjoy flipping between suspense and mystery genres. For those who like their crime fiction bite-sized. And for those who just love being terrified. Many of the stories rely on lying, creating falsehood, like Rebecca Turkewitz’s “Sarah Lane’s School for Girls,” in which a murder at a Vermont school provokes one lie after another. In Megan Abbott’s “Scarlet Ribbons,” a teen takes it upon herself to visit the Hoffman House one night, where a family was horribly murdered years ago. The results? Far worse than we could have dreamed. In Tananarive Due’s “Rumpus Room” a young mother in southern Florida does everything she can to keep her daughter, but the older gentleman she is meant to care for is so creepy she’s quickly packing. “These days the market for short stories is eroding like a thin strip of beach in a hurricane and I think that’s a shame,” writes Cosby in the introduction. He may be right, but until they completely disappear, we still have the Best American Mystery and Suspense series to enjoy.
