This is the fourteenth edition of Edward D. Hoch's distinguished collection of mystery-suspense short fiction. His choices reflect an unusually strong year for private-eye stories, in this centenniary of Raymond Chandler's birth. Five of these twelve stories feature private-investigator protagonists from established mystery novel series, though the stories themselves are far from the traditional P.I. caper. Their diversity demonstrates how flexible that tradition has become as more and more such stories are published in the United States, especially in magazines.

These tales are no longer strictly whodunit puzzlers of the Hammett-Chandler school. Michael Collins, for example, in "Crime and Punishment," grapples with the larger theme of the moral implications of the modern living. Loren D. Estleman, one of the best contemporary P.I. writers, and his character Amos Walker, make of the Detroit of "The Crooked Way" an instance of the use of setting as character which is equal to that accomplished by Ross MacDonald for California. And these are only two of the five.

In the remaining stories, subject matter, tone, and milieu are so far-ranging as to give the anthology an eclectic flavor, with something included to please almost every mystery reader's taste. Bill Crenshaw leads the pack with "Flicks," the Edgar Allen Poe Award winner for Best Mystery Short Story of the Year. Only one British author joins the rank: Peter Lovesey with "The Wasp." There are usually more but, as Ed Hoch sees it, American writers dominated the genre this past year; as this collection is bound to dominate anthologies in the genre.