Any collection of stories is bound to be a mixture of hits and misses for the reader. Even given that caveat, I am hard pressed to understand the logic behind this collection of the best "mysteries" of 2002. While the batting average of about 50% isn't bad I suppose for a rather finicky reader, some of the clunkers were truly clunkers--could not even drive them off the lot let alone around town. TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING by Michael Collins puts unbelievable people in unbelievable situations, BLESS ME FATHER FOR I HAVE SINNED by Ed Gorman was predictable from word one and irritating, THE PAINTED LADY by Deloris Stanton Forbes took a ridiculous square peg plot and forced it into a round whole genre and MOM LIGHTS A CANDLE by James Yaffe is a mystery but that cutesy kind where a detective's mother solves his crimes for him--blech. A few others I will excuse as mediocre and spare myself remembering them enough to write about. TO LIVE AND DIE IN MIDLAND TEXAS by Clark Howard (which starts out the collection with a bang) and MOODY'S BLUES by Hal Charles are both more pulp crime stories than mystery though they both do tease the title genre somewhat. Both have sharply drawn characters in convincingly desperate straits and you are drawn to their endings like a bad child being pulled across the yard to that tree with the best switches. I also enjoyed THE DEAD THEIR EYES IMPLORE US by George Pelecanos, though it felt more like a writing exercise at times than a mystery. Ultimately a well done jazz riff on a down and outer amidst a well hewed urban crime setting. The prize for me amidst this collection was IF ALL IS DARK by Mat Coward. You only realize at the end of the story that you have indeed been reading a mystery and have been sifting the clues almost unconsciously so that by the end you are surprised but not shocked. Told with ease and snarky wit, the story lives and breathes around three characters who should not really be together but who's coexistence feels natural and somehow unavoidable. The one story that immediately drove me to the web to find out more about the author. I will be reading more from him. Writing this has revealed that the batting average was closer to 66% than fifty so I guess there was more mystery about it than I gave it credit for. On the whole, worthwhile. Especially if you skip the first four stories I mentioned.