Otto Penzler

Shares the stories behind the creations of many of the mystery genre's most popular characters, revealing the inspirations for such examples as Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch and Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe.

The oldest mystery specialty bookstore in the world, The Mysterious Bookshop, has for most of its forty-five-year history commissioned an original short story as a holiday gift for its customers. Written exclusively for the store, the stories were given as a holiday gift to its customers as a thank you for their business, handed out or mailed between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.
The prompt for the story requires three elements: that it be...

The origins of literature’s finest crime fighters, told by their creators themselves
Their names ring out like gunshots in the dark of a back alley, crime fighters of a lost era whose heroic deeds will never be forgotten. They are men like Lew Archer, Pierre Chambrun, Flash Casey, and the Shadow. They are women like Mrs. North and the immortal Nancy Drew. These are detectives, and they are some of the only true heroes the twentieth...

An unstoppable anthology of crime stories culled from Black Mask magazine the legendary publication that turned a pulp phenomenon into literary mainstream. 
 
Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir.  It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared.  It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler...

Just when you think you will sleep at night, the best writers of the stuff nightmares are made of offer tales of suspense, fantasy, horror, and cold-blooded crime. Challenging twists of plot make this collection a chilling audio experience. Featuring the finest short story mystery fiction by such acclaimed writers as Harlan Ellison, Ruth Rendell, and Charles McCarry, this volume includes: • " Soft Monkey" by Harlan Ellison read by the author •...

Seven original baseball short stories in the mystery and murder genres, written by an all-star lineup of writers, each of whom understands the game's lore and tactical nuances as well as its deep roots in American life. Compiled by Otto Penzler, the proprietor of “The Mysterious Bookshop” in New York City and regarded as the world's foremost authority on crime, mystery, and suspense fiction. Stories include: • "Ropa Vieja" by Laura Lippman-A...

This collection of suspenseful stories from legendary authors will test your detective instincts and imagination.
A premier anthology of some of the finest mystery stories in literary history, including tales from Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Aldous Huxley, O. Henry, and Mark Twain.

Tantalizing, as ingenious as they are devious, the classic stories in this continually arresting collection come with an irresistible challenge:

...

The Most Complete Collection of Impossible Crime Stories Ever Assembled, with puzzling mysteries by Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, Lawrence Block, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. G. Wodehouse, Erle Stanley Gardner, and many, many more
THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES: An empty desert, a lonely ski slope, a gentleman’s study, an elevator car—nowhere is a crime completely impossible.
Edgar...

An unparalleled treasury of crime, mystery, and murder from the genre's founding century With stories by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, and Jack London, The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century is an essential anthology of American letters. It's a unique blend of beloved writers who contributed to the genre and forgotten names that pioneered the...

The second immortal volume in this dark and fantastic series, Fangs is a scintillating and sinister collection of vampire stories and part of the now legendary Vampire Archives. Including Clive Barker, Anne Rice, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Many Many More. . .
Featuring:
·        bloody fangs
·        dark and foreboding crypts
·       ...