The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2025

“The stories cover a satisfying range of styles and themes, embellished with notes from their authors… . A must-read for short story aficionados.” – Booklist starred review for Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024“Wide-ranging … Because the stories vary so much, it’s a great bet for gifting to mystery and crime fiction readers.” – NY Journal of Books on Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024“Mystery fans will rejoice in this collection featuring a wide array of authors and fun tales.” – Library Journal“This year’s volume fulfills its promise of originality while honoring the time-tested formula for good mysteries: It shows readers characters they feel they know and care about doing things they couldn’t possibly have anticipated. Hits the spot.” – Kirkus

John Grisham is the author of fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include Camino Ghosts, The Exchange: After the Firm, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series. Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system. John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of The Mysterious Press (1975); MysteriousPress.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from NoirCon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 70 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.