<\/p>\n
EASTHAMPTON \u2014 A story written by Easthampton resident J.D. O\u2019Brien will appear in an anthology of the best mystery and suspense short fiction in America.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien\u2019s selected story, \u201cOutlaw Country,\u201d follows a struggling Nashville country singer who decides the best way to get famous is to commit a high-profile crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked the idea of this delusional character who sees himself as a modern-day version of a classic outlaw country jailbird singer like Merle Haggard or David Allan Coe, but instead of putting in the work to become a great songwriter, decides to make his name by committing a high-profile crime,\u201d O\u2019Brien said of his book in an email to The Republican. \u201cOn the other end is a cop who has similar delusions, except he sees himself as an old-school lawman. So they come head-to-head during what ends up being a wild crime spree in Nashville.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Best American Mystery and Suspense\u201d is an anthology of the best North American mystery and thriller stories published in the previous year. Stories this year were selected by New York Times bestselling author Don Winslow and series editor Steph Cha. The collection has been published annually since 1997.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe \u2018Best American\u2019 a<\/i>nthology is such a long-running institution and to be in the company of so many great writers \u2014 and having my story selected by Don Winslow and Steph Cha \u2014 turns the imposter syndrome anxiety up high,” O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien\u2019s debut novel, \u201cZig Zag,\u201d was released in 2023 and follows a botched marijuana dispensary heist that sends Capri Dall and her boyfriend on the run in a stolen car. It was described as \u201ca cosmic American crime odyssey\u201d by crime fiction author William Boyle.<\/p>\n
After living in New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon, O\u2019Brien now lives in Easthampton with his dog, Lefty, where he is working on \u201cRoll Another Number,\u201d a sequel to \u201cZig Zag.\u201d For more information, visit O\u2019Brien\u2019s author page<\/a> on Amazon.<\/p>\n Read the original article on MassLive<\/a>. Add MassLive<\/a> as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EASTHAMPTON \u2014 A story written by Easthampton resident J.D. O\u2019Brien will appear in an anthology of the best mystery and suspense short fiction in America. O\u2019Brien\u2019s selected story, \u201cOutlaw Country,\u201d follows a struggling Nashville country singer who decides the best way to get famous is to commit a high-profile crime. \u201cI liked the idea of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2112842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[400257,354240,400258,400256,400255,358387,400254,400259],"class_list":["post-2112841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-american-mystery","tag-david-allan-coe","tag-don-winslow","tag-easthampton","tag-j-d-obrien","tag-merle-haggard","tag-nashville-country-singer","tag-outlaw-country"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Easthampton-authors-work-selected-for-\u2018Best-American-Mystery-and-Suspense.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2112841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2112843,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2112841\/revisions\/2112843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2112842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2112841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2112841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2112841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}