The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century (Audiobook)

In THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES OF THE CENTURY, best-selling author Tony Hillerman and mystery expert Otto Penzler present an unparalleled treasury of American suspense fiction that every fan will cherish. Offering the finest examples from all reaches of the genre, this collection charts the mystery's eminent history from the turn-of-the-century puzzles of Futrelle, to the seminal pulp fiction of Hammett and Chandler, to the mystery story's rise to legitimacy in the popular mind, a trend that has benefited masterly writers like Westlake, Hunter, and Grafton. Nowhere else can readers find a more thorough, more engaging, more essential distillation of American crime fiction.
Penzler, the Best American Mystery Stories series editor, and Hillerman winnowed this select group out of a thousand stories, drawing on sources as diverse as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Esquire, Collier's and The New Yorker. Giants of the genre abound -- Raymond Chandler, Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, Lawrence Block, Ellery Queen, Sara Paretsky, and others -- but the editors also unearthed gems by luminaries rarely found in suspense anthologies: William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Damon Runyon, Harlan Ellison, James Thurber, and Joyce Carol Oates. Mystery buffs and newcomers alike will delight in the thrilling stories and top-notch writing of a hundred years' worth of the finest suspense, crime, and mystery writing.
Contents
A Retrieved Reformation by O. Henry
Paul's Case by Willa Cather
The Problem of Cell 13 by Jacques Futrelle
Blind Man's Buff by Frederick Irving Anderson
Naboth's Vineyard by Melville Davisson Post
A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell
The Gutting of Couffignal by Dashiell Hammett
Haircut by Ring Lardner
Blue Murder by Wilbur Daniel Steele
The Perfect Crime by Ben Ray Redman
The Baby in the Icebox by James M. Cain
The Murder by John Steinbeck
Sense of Humor by Damon Runyan
Ransom by Pearl S. Buck
Red Wind by Raymond Chandler
The Catbird Seat by James Thurber
Rear Window by Cornell Woolrich
An Error in Chemistry by William Faulkner
The Nine Mile Walk by Harry Kemelman
The Adventure of the President's Half Disme by Ellery Queen
The Homesick Buick by John D. MacDonald
Gone Girl by Ross Macdonald
The Moment of Decision by Stanley Ellin
First Offense by Evan Hunter
The Couple Next Door by Margaret Millar
The Day of the Execution by Henry Slesar
The Terrapin by Patricia Highsmith
The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson
The Comforts of Home by Flannery O'Connor
Good Man, Bad Man by Jerome Weidman
Goodbye, Pops by Joe Gores
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs by Harlan Ellison
The Wager by Robert L. Fish
Do With Me What You Will by Joyce Carol Oates
Quitters, Inc. by Stephen King
The Absence of Emily by Jack Ritchie
By the Dawn's Early Light by Lawrence Block
Iris by Stephen Greenleaf
Three-Dot Po by Sara Paretsky
The Parker Shotgun by Sue Grafton
Too Many Crooks by Donald E. Westlake
Hot Springs by James Crumley
The Dark Snow by Brendan DuBois
Red Clay by Michael Malone
Poachers by Tom Franklin
Running Out of Dog by Dennis Lehane