The Best Crimey Short Story Collections in Recent Years

I love a short story! And as a new mom, short stories are kind of all I can read right now. I love Jonathan Ames, and I just moved through The Double Life Is Twice as Good. And now I’m ready for more short crimey morsels that I can read in between feedings or with the baby in my arms. I’ve assembled a lot of newer short story collections, here, because we haven’t done a roundup of that kind of thing in a while.

Some of the entries on this list are stone-cold crime collections, very classic. We’ve got books of whodunnits, locked room mysteries, puzzles… you name it Now, are there some collections on here that you might not technically call crime but still have atmospheric thrillery elements or genre-bending components? Yes. There’s some sci-fi stuff here, some literary fiction-ish stuff going on, even some magical realism afoot. I like a broad spectrum of themes! Some of these collections are by a single author, while others are edited anthologies. Some are written in English, while others are in translation.

I’ve kept this list to collections released within the last two years. Sound good?

Okay, away we go!

Megan Abbott (ed), The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2026
(Mariner Books)

First, we must start with the foundational text! Our queen, Megan Abbott, has selected the best mystery and suspense short stories of the year, so we must read! –Olivia Rutigliano

Otto Penzler (ed), Golden Age of Suspense Stories
(American Mystery Classics)

Detective fiction usually gets the top billing for its golden age, but classic suspense stories are getting their time in the limelight now, too, with this collection featuring fifteen tales from the likes of James M. Cain and Ellery Queen. –Dwyer Murphy

Martin Edwards (ed), Lessons in Crime 
(Poisoned Pen Press)

Martin Edwards is another MVP of the crime anthology world, and here, continuing his British Library Crime Classics series with Poisoned Pen Press, he has collected a bunch of academic mysteries. Perfect for burnt-out ex-graduate students like me! –OR

Sara Gran, Little Mysteries
(Dreamland Books)

Gran has rightly had a bit of a renaissance in the last few years, as Come Closer has found a new hungry group of readers. I’ve always been a fan of Gran’s Claire DeWitt mysteries—existential, elliptic, frustratingly human [positive]—and this new collection of short DeWitt stories (or DeWitt-adjacent stories) is like water in the desert. There’s a lot of play afoot here (including a cootie catcher story!) and that makes me all the more excited for Gran’s return to fiction after a few quiet years.  –Drew Broussard

Don Winslow, The Final Score
(William Morrow)

The fact there’s a new Boone Daniels story in this collection of six short novels by crime legend Don Winslow is enough for me to dive in without looking, and “The Lunch Break” is a highlight, but as ever, Winslow really shines in the title story about a master thief facing the end of the road. Winslow has written epics that stand among the best crime fiction in recent decades (not least of all The Cartel trilogy), but he has a deft and memorable touch with the shorter forms, too. This new book is a delight. –DM

Joyce Carol Oates, Double Trouble
(Hard Case Crime)

This well-named volume is the gift that keeps on giving: it’s two novels and a few never-before-seen short stories, all in one handy binding. One story is about a female serial killer who comes back into the orbit of her twin sister, while the other is about a male serial killer who kills for the woman he loves. Joyce Carol Oates can write a masterpiece in any genre, and her forays into thrillers and pulp are some of her most exciting contributions. –OR

Ken Liu, The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories
(S&S/Saga Press)

Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award-winning writer and translator Ken Liu’s The Paper Menagerie was one of our favorite short story collections of the last decade; his latest is sure to hold more strange and stirring delights. –Emily Temple

Emily Doyle, Please Don’t Touch the Body
(Bloomsbury)

As highlighted in our first half preview: I’ve had the pleasure of glimpsing Emily Doyle’s muscular, heart-forward fiction in a writing workshop, and all I can say is brace yourselves. The body is front and center in these uniquely brewed stories, which range from surreal to poignant. In one piece, a woman fearing fetishization finds agency by writing a sex column. In another, Ronald Reagan is reincarnated as a puppy, and forced to depend on the whims of his queer owners. This debut collection is thrillingly concerned with how we come to feel at ease in—or in power of—our meatsacks.  –Brittney Allan

Gigi Pandian and Tom Mead (eds), All the Crime in the World,
(Crippen & Landru Publishers)

Out of all the books on this list, this is the one I’m reading first! I love a locked-room mystery, so I’m especially for this international collection which features many takes on the subgenre by numerous authors I love, from S.A. Cosby to Victor Bonini to Mead, himself.–OR

Mariah Rigg, Extinction Capital of the World: Stories
(Ecco)

I love collections of connected short stories and intergenerational narratives. Extinction Capital of the World promises both, but what really excites me about the collection is its consideration of imperialism and environmental destruction in Hawai’i, and how those conditions intersect with the lives of the people who witness their consequences every day. –Oliver Scialdone

Samanta Schweblin, tr. Megan McDowell, Good and Evil and Other Stories
(Knopf)

In the eight years since Fever Dream helped kick off the wave of US readers finally getting to experience the best of Latin American weird fiction in translation, Samanta Schweblin and her reliable translator Megan McDowell have maintained a steady flow of unsettling and odd stories at every length. This new collection promises nothing less than the biggest dichotomy of all—good and evil—and is sure to deliver tense, beautiful, soul-shaking stuff. –DB

P.M. Raymond, Things Are As They Should Be (And Other Words to Die For)
(Uncomfortably Dark Horror)

I’ve heard great things about this spooky Southern Gothic-meetsnoir-meets horror collection from P.M. Raymond. The stories are set in New Orleans, and that should be all you need to go on.

Jonathan Lethem, A Different Kind of Tension: New and Selected Stories
(Ecco)

Jonathan Lethem has always been my favorite of the literary Jonathans. The breadth of his output is the kind of thing more writers should aspire to: science-fiction, mystery, crime, literary fiction, humor, tragedy. Nothing less than the full breadth of human experience, you might say—and so I’m particularly excited for his having reached the level of literary fame that allows for a “new and selected” collection: an opportunity to meet Lethem in his fullest expression, whether for the first time or the fiftieth.