Manhattan Mayhem (2 page)
Authors: Mary Higgins Clark
In 2015, Mystery Writers of America celebrated its founding seventy years ago, in March 1945, during the closing days of World War II. The founding group consisted of ten women and men, eventually gaining membership to about one hundred by the end of its first year. I remember when I joined MWA over fifty years ago, only about ten tables were needed at the annual Edgar Awards banquet, a much more intimate affair than today’s glittery gala.
Back then, the joke we told was about the man who went to a cocktail party and was asked by another guest what kind of job he had.
“I’m a writer,” he said.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. What do you write?”
“Crime novels.”
Pause. Icy stare. Then the put-down. “I only read
good
books.”
That was then, this is now. Today, suspense and crime novels, “thrillers” as the English call them, have taken their place worldwide as an honored and thoroughly enjoyed branch of literature. And MWA has grown right alongside the genre. From its humble beginnings, when those ten authors met in Manhattan to form what would become today’s MWA, our venerable organization has grown to more than 3,500 members around the world.
The seventieth anniversary of Mystery Writers of America is a very special occasion. Since its founding, the organization has worked tirelessly to protect and promote mystery and crime writers, working in conjunction with them, as well as with publishers and libraries, to elevate both the genre and its authors. And that is why our tireless former executive vice president and current publication committee chair,
Barry Zeman, and I conceived the idea of a special anniversary tribute collection celebrating Manhattan, where MWA was conceived and created.
Manhattan Mayhem
is my third MWA anthology, and although I am proud of each one, this one holds a unique place in my heart. I invited a stellar collection of authors, including those who had previously given their time and talents to my past anthologies and are still active in MWA, as well as writers I have not had the pleasure of working with until now. Each was asked to select an iconic Manhattan neighborhood in which to set a story. The result is a marvelously diverse collection of tales that takes place from one end of the borough to the other—from Wall Street to Union Square, Central Park to Harlem, and Times Square to Sutton Place South, as well as eleven other evocative New York City locations.
Some writers decided to visit the Manhattan of the past, such as N. J. Ayres in “Copycats,” a gritty tale of post–World War II cops and criminals, and “The Baker of Bleecker Street,” Jeffery Deaver’s tale of wartime espionage. In “The Day after Victory,” Brendan DuBois chose to write about a pivotal moment in the city’s history, V-J Day in Times Square. Angela Zeman selected a different era, the bustling early 1990s, for “Wall Street Rodeo,” a story of street hustlers and cons-within-cons that plays out on the street hailed as the financial capital of the world.
Other authors spun stories that encompass many years and, often, decades. Jon L. Breen tells of a series of unsolved crimes that reach back more than half a century in “Serial Benefactor.” T. Jefferson Parker takes us on a tour of the darker side of Little Italy’s crime families from the 1970s to today in “Me and Mikey.” Judith Kelman’s “Sutton Death Overtime” combines the perils and pitfalls of mystery-novel writing and the disappearance of a Manhattan socialite whose case is laid to rest decades later … or is it? Native Manhattanite Justin Scott weaves one of our most fanciful tales, crossing crime, time, and space to spectacular effect in “Evermore.” I also offer a story of my own. “The Five-Dollar Dress” is a cautionary tale about how we may never truly know those closest to our hearts.
But of course, even today, Manhattan is a hotbed of imagined crimes and mystery as well as the real thing. For some of our stories, family is at the heart of a crime. In “Three Little Words,” Nancy Pickard reveals the often-spiteful core of the Big Apple and what happens when one woman tries to change it. The mystery-solving mother of series detective Lydia Chin tackles a missing-persons case brought to her by her son in S. J. Rozan’s “Chin Yong-Yun Makes a
Shiddach,
” while in “Red-Headed Stepchild” fellow MWA grand master Margaret Maron shows a step-sibling rivalry that matches anything adults can dream up. Thomas H. Cook portrays how some family ties can bind to the bitter end in “Damage Control,” set in a gentrified Hell’s Kitchen, and Persia Walker’s “Dizzy and Gillespie” tells of a dispute between neighbors in a Harlem apartment building, with a loving daughter caught in the middle.
All these wonderful stories, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. Lee Child’s drifting modern warrior Jack Reacher makes a stop in the Big Apple in “The Picture of the Lonely Diner,” in which just exiting a subway station ensnares him in enough intrigue and danger to fill a novel. A sunny day in Central Park turns dangerous for at least one perpetrator in Julie Hyzy’s “White Rabbit.” And Ben H. Winters takes us behind the cutthroat world of Off-Broadway theater in “Trapped!”
Our esteemed publisher, Quirk Books, has illustrated each of the stories with maps and photographs from these classic neighborhoods, making
Manhattan Mayhem
a unique tribute and keepsake anthology in honor of a very special organization and an equally special city.
We hope you’ll be as pleased reading these stories as we were writing them.
ON THE OCCASION
of MWA’s seventieth anniversary, we would like to take a moment on behalf of the organization to extend our deepest appreciation to Mary Higgins Clark. Since joining its ranks as a young writer, she has consistently been a tireless champion of MWA, our members, and mystery writers worldwide.
