The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023
About this audiobook
A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger and series editor Steph Cha.
“This form has a special kind of magic, the ability to transport you quickly, intensely, to capture character, time, place, and story with immediacy,” writes guest editor Lisa Unger in her introduction. 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. By turns thrilling and enlightening, each story, according to Unger, “will have you holding your breath, flipping the pages, will leave you thinking about people and why they do the dark, dangerous, frightening things that they do.”
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023 includes Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier • William Boyle • S. A. Cosby • Jacqueline Freimor • James A. Hearn • Ladee Hubbard • A. J. Jacono • Adam Meyer • Silvia Moreno-Garcia • Walter Mosley • Leigh Newman • Joyce Carol Oates • Margaret Randall • Annie Reed • Anthony Neil Smith • Faye Snowden • Jervey Tervalon • Joseph S. Walker • Thaai Walker • Jess Walter
About the author
LISA UNGER, guest editor, is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including her latest, Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six. She has been nominated for or won numerous awards, including the Strand Critics, Audie, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice Awards as well as the Hammett Prize. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few authors, including Agatha Christie. Lisa is currently copresident of the International Thriller Writers organization.
Steph Cha is the author of the Juniper Song mystery series and Your House Will Pay, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller and the California Book Award, and has been a finalist for a Young Lions Fiction Award, a Macavity Award, a Lefty Award, a Barry Award, and a Dagger Award, as well as longlisted for the Aspen Prize. She is an editor and critic whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where she edited the noir section for almost five years. A native of the San Fernando Valley, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.
