Young Blood

When reading mysteries (or maybe anything, for that matter), whether for fun or because it's part of the job (some job!), it's easy to fall into the fuzzy womb of familiarity, a comfort zone.

If the books one has enjoyed the most for the past few years are hard-boiled private eye stories, chances are the next book to be picked up will be another. Ditto espionage novels, romantic suspense, legal thrillers, police procedurals, cozies, or noir fiction.

And it's even worse than just that. I find that every time one of my favorite writers has a new book, it makes its way to the top of the pile, elbowing past all those that look like they'll be really good but about which I know little other than the dust jacket blurb, or maybe an advance review from Publishers Weekly.

Instead of broadening the horizon, I'll reach for the new Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos, Thomas H. Cook, Charles Carry, Thomas Perry, Lee Child, James Crumley, Nelson DeMille, Stephen Hunter, John Harvey, Alan Furst, and so on for another dozen or more writers who always — I mean always — do a great job. Before I know it, the year has gone by, and the process repeats.

These thoughts were chasing each other around my brain when I selected the anthology "Killer Year" (St. Martin's Minotaur, 275 pages, $24.95) for the column. Okay, it caught my attention because Mr. Child, who is no pushover, is the editor, and I liked the premise: All the stories were by authors whose first novel was published in 2007, so these were mostly new to me, though I had read Marcus Sakey's wonderful "The Blade Itself," the prose of which glows like the glaze on Sung porcelain.

Proving he's no one-hit wonder, Mr. Sakey offers one of the highlights of this first-rate collection, "Gravity and Need." Mr. Sakey's work does not rest in sunshine. It's tougher than the weeds growing through cement sidewalk cracks. When the two protagonists are on their first date, the young woman fills a lull in the conversation by asking her beau, "Do you think you could kill everyone in this restaurant if you had to?"

They fall in love and marry, and she tells him that her parents had divorced, which is something she swears she would never do. He has an automobile accident, paralyzing him from the waist down, so their relationship faces some unexpected stress. After a particularly difficult time, he asks if she wants a divorce. She assures him she does not. What he doesn't know is what she does want.

Ray Dudgeon is the private eye hero of Sean Chercover's first novel, "Big City, Bad Blood," and he's back in "One Serving of Bad Luck," a story so good it suggests that the author's future is as bright as a Hollywood smile.

Plot outlines tend to be dryer than Lawrence of Arabia, so don't be put off by the usual starting point of the story, in which Dudgeon is hired by a lawyer to find a key witness. A woman who had her tires rotated is in an accident that seriously injures her when a wheel falls off her car. The mechanic responsible goes missing and, when the private detective tracks him down, he learns that the insurance company has paid him to leave town until the claim is settled. I can't say that I believe any insurance company would send two thugs with guns every week to guarantee that a witness will do what they want him to, but then I'm not cynical.

It is what happens next that lifts this suspenseful tale above the ordinary, and even above the very good.

Ken Bruen, not even close to being a first novelist, somehow got a story in this fine collection, though he didn't fit the established criterion. Probably Mr. Child couldn't resist adding a good story, "Time of the Green," which has a great twist. Although he has what I am firmly convinced is a genetic Irish trait of fine storytelling, it is his unique style that is Mr. Bruen's greatest talent — a talent rarer than a thirsty fish.

There is nothing more that one needs to know about a character who is described as wearing a Timex watch with a plastic strap "to accessorize his soul."

Like most collections, or sex partners' bodies, some parts inevitably are better than others, but there is a preponderance of the yummy stuff in "Killer Year."

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, and the series editor of the annual "Best American Mystery Stories." He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.