STORYBOOKS

by John M. Floyd

As a rabid reader of both novels and short stories, I’m always excited when I hear that a favorite novelist has come out with a book of short fiction. Not just an entry in an anthology, mind you, but a collection of his or her own short stories.

Both kinds of writing don’t come easy to everyone. Some authors who have done both short and long are, I think, better at novels (Ed McBain, Agatha Christie, Dennis Lehane, Donald Westlake, Joe R. Lansdale), some are better at the short stuff (Roald Dahl, Conan Doyle, Hemingway, Ed Hoch, Jack Ritchie), and some — not many — seem equally good at both (Lawrence Block, Stephen King, Jeffery Deaver, Elmore Leonard, etc.). But regardless of the quality of the work, I think it’s great fun to discover a new book of short stories, and especially one by an established writer who’s not already known for his or her short fiction. An example is James Lee Burke, and his recent collection Jesus Out to Sea. I figured I would enjoy it because I love Burke’s novels, and sure enough, I did. The fact that many of the stories in that collection involve a Katrina-aftermath backdrop made them even better.

I often wish that more of my favorite novelists — Hiaasen, Coben, Evanovich, McMurtry, Crichton, Nevada Barr, John Sandford, William Goldman, Steve Hamilton, John Dunning, Martin Cruz Smith, Doug Preston, Robert B. Parker, Thomas Harris, Greg Iles, Ken Follett, Nelson DeMille, and others — would try short fiction as well. (Parker has written a few shorts, but very few, and most are to be found only in anthologies.)

Anyhow, here are several collections of short stories on my own shelves that I think you might enjoy. All could probably be classified as suspense fiction, and most are mystery/suspense, though a few are westerns or adventure or speculative. All are entertaining.

Field of Thirteen — Dick Francis
When the Women Come Out to Dance — Elmore Leonard
Coronado — Dennis Lehane
Twisted — Jeffery Deaver
Some Days You Get the Bear — Lawrence Block
Night Shift — Stephen King
No Comebacks — Frederick Forsyth
The Roald Dahl Omnibus
Quicker Than the Eye — Ray Bradbury
Eighteen — Jan Burke
The Lonely Sea — Alistair MacLean
Like a Lamb to Slaughter — Lawrence Block
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet — Richard Matheson
Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Houses Without Doors — Peter Straub
Sometimes They Bite — Lawrence Block
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
High Cotton — Joe R. Lansdale
Small Felonies — Bill Pronzini
Everything’s Eventual — Stephen King
To Cut a Long Story Short — Jeffrey Archer
The Tonto Woman — Elmore Leonard
Miss Marple’s Final Cases — Agatha Christie
Duel — Richard Matheson
A Good Hanging — Ian Rankin
Collected Stories of O. Henry
Driving Blind — Ray Bradbury
Learning to Kill — Ed McBain
More Twisted — Jeffery Deaver
Nightmares and Dreamscapes — Stephen King
Jesus Out to Sea — James Lee Burke
Enough Rope — Lawrence Block

Three collections that I do not own were written by Jack Ritchie: The Adventures of Henry Turnbuckle, Little Boxes of Bewilderment, and A New Leaf and Other Stories. My former literary agent, the late Larry Sternig, once mailed me two of these to read, and I loved them, but I had to return them to him afterward (he was also Ritchie’s agent) — and alas, I’ve not been able to locate copies since. As I have mentioned before, I think Jack Ritchie might be the best short-story writer I’ve ever read. I first discovered his stories (like Ed Hoch’s) in mystery magazines and anthologies, and I never saw them elsewhere.

If any of you have favorite mystery collections, please let me know. (Thanks, by the way, to Jeff Baker, who told me a few weeks ago about Small Felonies, Pronzini’s book of 50 short-short mysteries. I bought it right away, Jeff, and thoroughly enjoyed it.)

And don’t worry, I haven’t given up on reading novels. There’s just something special about discovering a new group of bite-sized stories.

As if I don’t have enough of them already …