In his introduction, Guest editor Jess walter Describes what most excites him while reading. "There is something that I have trouble defining, but which I think of as snap It can be dialogue that crackles, beginnings that cause you to sit up, or ending that make you slap your head." From an untrustworthy bartender fiddling with drink orders to a commuter watching a stalking unfold on a train to a sociopath with an unusual collection delivering a valuable life lesson, the characters in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 are utterly compelling. These stories delightfully twist, bend and snap, and in the process, pull back the curtain on horrors and uncertainties in not only made-up worlds but also our own. The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022 includes Tracy Clark, S. A. Cosby, Alex Espinoza, Tod Goldberg, Juliet Grames, Lauren Groff, Dennis Lehane, Kristen Lepionka, David Heska Wanbli Weiden and others Jess Walter, guest editor, is the author of ten books, most recently of the short-story collection The Angel of Rome and the novel The Cold Millions. He won the Edgar Award for best novel for Citizen Vince and was a National Book Award finalist for The Zero.

His novel Beautiful Ruins was a number one New York Times bestseller. Steph Cha, series editor, is the author of the Juniper Song Mysteries series and Your House Will Pay, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best mystery/thriller and the California Book Award for fiction. She's an editor and critic whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, where she served as noir editor.