A Buried Treasure in an old Newspaper--

I found a buried treasure in an old copy of the local freebie weekly newspaper Creative Loafing a few days ago. This issue was a great candidate for the recycle bin (I'd keep issue after issue if I'm not careful) but I found a worthwhile book column about a short story collection of the past year's best work. The Best American Mystery Stories 2007 is available now and according to the column it's a great collected work. Edited by Carl Hiaasen this edition (it is the 11th of the series to date), it offers 20 detective and crime stories (of which, the crime stories may even just be the threat of a crime). Included are the well-known and popular authors (i.e., Lawrence Block and James Lee Burke) along with the less well-known writers.

The column concludes with the observation for this volume that "there isn't a single clunker in the bunch, an impressive achievement for any literary juror." And as a reader, I'll gladly take those reading odds.