Jerome Charyn (ed.): The New Mystery (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
This definitive collection from the International Association of Crime Writers gathers forty-two stories by the world's best literary talents to create a fictional mirror of our fears, our need for justice -- or revenge -- and our violent world. These chilling stories push the genre of crime writing beyond its old limits to create a genuine literature for the modern age.

James Ellroy and Andrew Vachss -- creators of stories that surpass the mere hard edge to depict a bloody, pitiless world of criminals and avengers -- show us a violent urban no-man's land where the real danger is the loss of our souls.

Sue Grafton uses her PI Kinsey Millhone to balance the scales of justice in the shotgun killing of a cocaine dealer when the authorities can't or won't. And Sara Paretsky brings back Philip Marlowe to solve a classic California case of double murder in a brilliant homage to Raymond Chandler.

All the stories in this unparalleled treasury of "new mystery" represent crime writing that no langer follows the rules of yesterday's cozies and detective fiction. Evil still lurks here, but there are no sanitized off-stage murders solved by aloof paragons of deduction. Instead we have vigorous, ironic, disturbingly realistic and undeniably alive tales that are remarkably diverse and riveting. A mystery lover's dream.

Jerome Charyn (ed.): The New Mystery. The International Association of Crime Writers' Essential Crime Writing of the Late 20th Century. New and classic Stories by P.D. James, James Ellroy, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, Lawrence Block, Jorge Luis Borge, Sara Paretsky, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Walter Mosley, Donald E. Westlake, Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol Oates and 30 other Major Crime Writers. Plume, ISBN 0452271339 (February, 1994), 306 p., $12.95.