The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2026

Tess Gerritsen, the slightly feminized pseudonym of Terry Gerritsen, nee Terry Tom, is the internationally bestselling author of mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and detective fiction. While practicing medicine on Hawaii, she began to write romantic suspense novels and produced eight before turning her hand to medical thrillers, beginning with Harvest (1996), which landed on the New York Times bestseller list, as did her next three books. Switching sub-genres again, she began her series about homicide detective Jane Rizzoli, who soon paired with medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles for the next thirteen novels, inspiring the television series, Rizzoli & Isles, starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander. Her historical stand-alone novel, The Bone Garden, features Oliver Wendell Holmes and is darker than Lady Macbeth. Gerritsen’s books have been published in forty countries, selling more than twenty-five million copies.

Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of the Mysterious Press (1975); Mysterious Press.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from Noircon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 80 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.