title: Best American Mystery Stories of the Century
author: Tony Hillerman
description: Anthologies are tricky things for editors: to select a story for inclusion is to make oneself a target for readers who wonder hotly why X or Y or Z <i>wasn't</i> chosen. And to be so brash as to deem an anthology the best <i>anything</i> of the century practically invites scorn and condemnation. But with <i>The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century</i>, Tony Hillerman, Edgar-winning author, and Otto Penzler, founder of the Mysterious Press, step boldly to the firing line with a salvo of 55 stories that are so devious and absorbing, challenging and rewarding that most readers will hold their fire.
zlib_text: THE GREATEST STORIES 
  OF THE DECADE
  1980-1989
  MYSTERY
  A CENTURY OF
  
  A CENTURY OF 
  MYSTERY 
  1980-1989
  Edited by Marcia Miller 
  and Bill Pronzini
  Expect the unexpected.
  A man vacationing in Greece, who 
  loves his children to distraction 
  (“Father’s Day”). A couple living out 
  an alternative lifestyle overseas, only 
  to find it coming home to haunt them 
  (“As Good as a Rest”). Rumors of 
  witchcraft on a Navajo reservation 
  (“Chee’s Witch”). An apparently 
  ordinary accident in San Francisco 
  (“Hit-and-Run”)...
  All over the world, small mysteries 
  unfold from the seeds of ordinary 
  human emotions—envy, anger, worry, 
  lust, even love. Small mysteries in 
  which are wrapped small crimes, that 
  emerge when solved, to burst into 
  plain sight like poison pollen.
  The 1980’s were a heady decade for 
  the mystery story. Here are the best 
  of that decade.
  
  A CENTURY OF
  MYSTERY 
  1980-1989 
  EDITED BY
  MARCIA MULLER 
  AND BILL PRONZINI
  THE GREATEST STORIES 
  OF THE DECADE
  MJF BOOKS
  NEWYORK
  
  Published by MJF