The Mysterious West

''The Mysterious West'' is a 1994 anthology edited by Tony Hillerman and published by HarperTorch (an imprint of HarperCollins). The book went on to win the Anthony Award for Best Short Story Collection in 1995.

Development of anthology

Hillerman selected twenty short mystery stories about the American West, by twenty different Western authors. The stories are set in a variety of locations, from Berkeley, California and Las Vegas, Nevada to the Alaskan bush.

List of story titles and authors

* ''Forbidden Things'' by Marcia Muller
* ''New Moon and Rattlesnakes'' by Wendy Hornsby
* ''Coyote Peyote'' by Carole Nelson Douglas
* ''Nooses Give'' by Dana Stabenow
* ''Who Killed Cock Rogers?'' by Bill Crider
* ''Caring for Uncle Henry'' by Robert Campbell
* ''Death of a Snowbird'' by J.A. Jance
* ''With Flowers in Her Hair'' by M.D. Lake
* ''The Lost Boys'' by William J. Reynolds
* ''Tule Fog'' by Karen Kijewski
* ''The River Mouth'' by Lia Matera
* ''No Better Than Her Father'' by Linda Grant
* ''Dust Devil'' by Rex Burns
* ''A Woman's Place'' by D.R. Meredith
* ''Postage Due'' by Susan Dunlap
* ''The Beast in the Woods'' by Ed Gorman
* ''Blowout in Little Man Flats'' by Stuart M. Kaminsky
* ''Small Town Murder'' by Harold Adams
* ''Bingo'' by John Lutz
* ''Engines'' by Bill Pronzini

Reviews

''Kirkus Reviews'' was disappointed that there was not more written by Tony Hillerman, the editor of this collection of short stories, than the introduction to each story. They did identify the best of the short stories as, "Marcia Muller's bittersweet memoir of a young woman's abortive homecoming, Linda Grant's reunion of a daughter with her eccentric, threatened father, Susan Dunlap's deadpan account of a loony hostage-taking in Berkeley, Ed Gorman's spare, chilling tale of a boy whose father is maddened by a run of bad luck -- typically subordinate atmosphere to the exploration of (generally troubled) family ties." And they noted the "least successful -- the undernourished whodunits by Dana Stabenow, Bill Crider, and Rex Burns, the postcard landscapes of Karen Kijewski and Bill Pronzini -- seem swallowed up by their settings; and the main interest of the tales by Carole Nelson Douglas and Stuart M. Kaminsky is to watch their tenderfoot creators pick their way gamely through the sagebrush." The concept of the regional viewpoint was considered novel.

''Library Journal'' recommended this book and another anthology of stories by Western writers for library collections, for the different perspective of each book. One is ''Talking Up a Storm: Voices of the New West'' by Gregory L. Morris of Pennsylvania State University, who interviewed Western authors who were "all "postmodernist" and "postregionalist" in their perspectives", and who offer "insights into what direction the new Western literary tradition seems to be headed." The other is ''The Mysterious West'', a less weighty book, with "20 short stories, primarily mystery and detective fiction", each introduced by Tony Hillerman. In sum, the 20 stories had "fictional landscapes here hatrange from the desolation, silence, and danger of Death Valley, and the small, dying towns of southern Colorado to the sophisticated originality and zaniness of Berkekey, California." The two books together introduce a reader to Western literature.

Publication history

This anthology was first released in hardcover in 1994. A paperback edition was released in 1995, using a different cover.

References

External links

''The Mysterious West''
at The Tony Hillerman Portal at UNM Library

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mysterious West
Anthony Award-winning works
American mystery novels
1994 American novels