The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2023

Starred review from July 10, 2023
After a spirited introduction on the history of crime fiction from editor Towles (A Gentleman in Moscow), this wide-ranging anthology kicks off with Doug Allyn’s deliciously clever “Blind Baseball.” In it, explosives expert Luke Duroy tries to defuse a roadside bomb in Iraq to protect his fellow American soldiers, but he unwittingly interferes with a tontine in the process. Derrick Belanger’s “The Adventure of the Misquoted Macbeth” is a smart Sherlock Holmes pastiche centering on a Shakespearean line flub in a strange message delivered to a debt collector; Belanger adds depth to the high-fizz tale by anchoring it in Dr. Watson’s tense relationship with his estranged brother. Kerry Hammond successfully evokes the tone and plot twists of golden age mystery fiction in “Strangers at a Table,” in which three passengers aboard an Amtrak dining car en route to Denver are invited by a fourth, a Miss Marple devotee, to share the story of “a little mystery” they have personal knowledge of, with shocking results. Across a dizzying number of subgenres, this collection delights by prizing quality over name recognition. There’s something here for every mystery fan.