BEST DETECTIVE STORIES OF THE YEAR 1981

Hoch's introduction announces, without explanation, that this 35th annual collection is ""the final volume"" in the Best Detective Stories series (""at least for the present""); and though Hoch's recent yearly selections haven't seemed especially discerning (with his own stories popping up all too regularly), the series will be missed--if only for the valuable appendices. As for the 16 stories here, they're a solid but uninspired bunch, with top honors to ironic end-twisters by Clark Howard (the Edgar-winner, set against a New Orleans jazz background), Peter Lovesey (in a non-Victorian mode), and ever-reliable Jack Ritchie. Mild amusement is provided by one of James Holding's library-fine detective stories, one of the late Robert L. Fish's ""Shlock Homes"" parodies (epically dumb detection at 221B Bagel St.), and by Jerry Jacobson's ""Correspondence with a Bicycle Thief""--in which the anonymous thief and his victim (who's picking up clues from the letters) trade snowballing insults. There's pure-puzzle detection from Bill Pronzini and Lillian de la Torre (a locked-room case for Dr. Johnson, based on a true-crime tale). And--along with dullish work by ion L. Breen (a ghost racehorse), William Bankier (homicidal jealousy among Canadian rock-musicians), William F. Nolan, Barbara Callahan (in rural dialect), Ernest Savage, editor Hoch, and way-below-par Ruth Rendell--there's a whimsical Barry N. Malzberg parable about Who Killed the Twentieth Century (was it advertising or television?). Far from memorable this year--but the series deserves a comeback.