Short stories curated by Best American Mystery Stories

An anthology of North American mystery and thriller stories, edited by series editor Steph Cha and bestselling authors such as Jess Walter, C.J. Box, Lisa Unger, Alafair Burke, James Patterson, and more.

Listing 219 stories.

A drunkard with a habit of lying and the hope of an American dream tries to get his family out of Cuba across dangerous waters.

When a teenage boy's father goes missing, the boy suspects that his father's girlfriend knows more than she lets on. He follows her to an abandoned hospital one night to find answers.

After one of his best friends commits suicide, a sixth-grader exacts his revenge on the teacher whose sexual abuse led his friend to his death.

A teenager learns how to cope with the premature loss of his father. Through a newly developed relationship with his uncle, he discovers a new version of his father he wasn't privy to during his life.

A down-and-out undercover police officer looks for potential crooks on the morning train to the airport.

In a small American town, a man is accused of the murder of a young girl and is sentenced to death. There is scanty evidence to suggest that the man committed the crime, and it is up to the the townspeople and a conflicted sheriff to decide if he really is guilty.

After the LAPD notices that the same female witness testified for two unrelated homicide cases, one detective must convince the witness to tell there truth before the murderer strikes again.

A shattered family grieves their missing infant boy's unsolved abduction, and are haunted decades following the crime.

A man's jealous wife kidnaps any woman she thinks he shows any interest in to torture and murder in their basement. Deciding to finally put an end to this and escape the absusive relationship, the man poisons his wife and frees her most recent victim.

After her identical twin goes missing in a small, suburban town, a sixteen-year-old girl reflects on her parents' crumbling marriage and muddles through life without her other half.