Otto Penzler – författare

A special reissue from Head of Zeus's bestselling anthology collection of the 100 best Yuletide whodunnits.A Times Book of the Year 2014.This Christmas crime anthology stars Poirot, Marple, Rebus, More, Rumpole, Sherlock, Cadfael and many, many more. Festive felonies, unscrupulous santas, deadly puddings, and misdemeanors under the mistletoe...From Victorian detective stories to modern mysteries, police procedurals to pulp fiction, comic gems to cozy crime, there's something for every festive mood in this must-read collection starring sixty of the world's favourite detectives.Featuring an all-star cast of authors including Isaac Asimov, Mary Higgins Clark, Arthur Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, Colin Dexter, Thomas Hardy, H.R.F. Keating, Ngaio Marsh, John Mortimer, Ellis Peters, Sara Paretsky, Robert Louis Stevenson and – of course – Agatha Christie, this is the biggest and best Christmas crime anthology in print today.

“One of the strengths of this true-crime anthology series comes simply from its astonishing variety . . . it would be tough to better this collection.” —BooklistThe 2005 edition of The Best American Crime Writing offers the year’s most shocking, compelling, and gripping writing about real-life crime, including Peter Landesman’s article about female sex slaves (the most requested and widely read New York Times story of 2004), a piece from The New Yorker by Stephen J. Dubner (the coauthor of Freakanomics) about a high-society silver thief, and an extraordinarily memorable “ode to bar fights” written by Jonathan Miles for Men’s Journal after he punched an editor at a staff party. But this year’s edition includes a bonus—an original essay by James Ellroy detailing his fascination with Joseph Wambaugh and how it fed his obsession with crime—even to the point of selling his own blood to buy Wambaugh’s books. Smart, entertaining, and controversial, The Best American Crime Writing is an essential edition to any crime enthusiast’s bookshelf.“Great choices [and] great writing . . . proves truth is indeed stranger than fiction.” —Bloomberg News“Because these well-written articles vary widely, this work should appeal to all true-crime enthusiasts.” —Library Journal“A solid and diverse collection of true-crime writing . . . Anyone interested in true crime should find something to enjoy in this wide-ranging collection.” —Publishers Weekly

Fifteen riveting true crime stories from some of the best crime writers around.A sterling collection of the year’s most shocking, compelling, and gripping writing about real-life crime, the 2006 edition of The Best American Crime Writing offers fascinating vicarious journeys into a world of felons and their felonious acts. This thrilling compendium includes:Jeffrey Toobin’s eye-opening exposé in The New Yorker about a famous prosecutor who may have put the wrong man on death rowSkip Hollandsworth''s amazing but true tale of an old cowboy bank robber who turned out to be a “classic good-hearted Texas woman”Jimmy Breslin’s stellar piece about the end of the Mob as we know it

"With consistently interesting content and beautiful writing, this collection will be devoured by fans of true crime and narrative nonfiction." —Library JournalEdited by Jeffrey Toobin, CNN''s senior legal analyst and New York Times–bestselling author of The Nine, The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 is a must-have for the true crime reader, complete with the most gripping, suspenseful, and brilliant stories of the year by the masters of crime reporting. Featuring stories of fraud, murder, theft, and madness, the Best American Crime Reporting series has been hailed as "arresting reading" (People) and the best mix of "the political, the macabre, and the downright brilliant" (Entertainment Weekly).

Fifteen examples of great American true crime writing, edited by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Alex Delaware novels.Thieves, liars, killers, and conspirators—it’s a criminal world out there, and someone has got to write about it. An eclectic collection of the year’s best reportage, The Best American Crime Reporting 2008 brings together the murderers and the master­minds, the mysteries and missteps that make for brilliant stories, told by the aces of the true-crime genre. This entry in the highly acclaimed series features guest editor Jonathan Kellerman, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of more than forty crime novels, including Unnatural History and Ghost Orchid.

For the first time ever, legendary editor Otto Penzler has handpicked some of the most respected and bestselling thriller writers working today for a riveting collection of spy fiction. From first to last, this stellar collection signals mission accomplished.Including:* Lee Child with an incredible look at the formation of a special ops cell. * James Grady writing about an Arab undercover FBI agent with an active cell.* Joseph Finder riffing on a Boston architect who''s convinced his Persian neighbors are up to no good.* John Lawton concocting a Len Deighton-esque story about British intelligence.* Stephen Hunter thrilling us with a tale about a WWII brigade. Full list of Contributors:James Grady, Charles McCarry, Lee Child, Joseph Finder, John Lawton, John Weisman, Stephen Hunter, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, Andrew Klavan, Robert Wilson, Dan Fesperman, Stella Rimington, Olen SteinhauerFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

This year’s worth of the most powerful, the most startling, the smartest and most astute, in short, the best crime journalism. Scouring hundreds of publications, Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook have created a remarkable compilation containing the best examples of the most current and vibrant of our literary traditions: crime reporting.Included in this volume are Maximillian Potter’s “The Body Farm” from GQ, a portrait of Murray Marks, who collects dead bodies and strews them around two acres of the University of Tennessee campus to study their decomposition in order to help solve crime; Jay Kirk’s “My Undertaker, My Pimp,” from Harper’s, in which Mack Moore and his wife, Angel, switch from run-ning crooked funeral parlors to establishing a brothel; Skip Hollandsworth’s “The Day Treva Throneberry Disappeared” from Texas Monthly, about the sudden disappearence of a teenager and the strange place she turned up; Lawrence Wright’s “The Counterterrorist” from The New Yorker, the story of John O’Neill, the FBI agent who tracked Osama bin Laden for a decade—until he was killed when the World Trade Center collapsed. Intriguing, entertaining, and compelling reading, Best American Crime Writing has established itself as a much-anticipated annual.From the Trade Paperback edition.

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 got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this.  Featuring   • Deadly Diamonds    • Dancing Rats    • A Prize Fighter Fighting for His Life    • A Parrot that Wouldn’t Talk  Including    • Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon as it was originally published    • Lester Dent''s Luck in print for the first timeFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

Have yourself a crooked little Christmas with The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries. Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories--many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant. Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for--suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural—can be found in these pages.  FEATURING:-        Unscrupulous Santas-        Crimes of Christmases Past and Present-        Festive felonies-        Deadly puddings-        Misdemeanors under the mistletoe-        Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe.

THE BIG BOOK OF GHOST STORIES is a spirited Black Lizard anthology with over a thousand pages of haunted—and haunting—tales. The ghost story is perhaps the oldest of all the supernatural literary genres and has captured the imagination of almost every writer to put pen to the page. Here, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler has followed his keen sense of the supernatural to collect the most chilling and uncanny tales in the canon. These spectral stories span more than a hundred years, from modern-day horrors by Joyce Carol Oates, Chet Williamson and Andrew Klavan, to pulp yarns from August Derleth, Greye La Spina, and M. L. Humphreys, to the atmospheric Victorian tales of Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, and H. P. Lovecraft, not to mention modern works by the likes of Donald E. Westlake and Isaac Asimov that are already classics. Some of these stories have haunted the canon for a century, while others are making their first ghoulish appearance  in book form.  Whether you prefer possessive poltergeists, awful apparitions, or friendly phantoms, these stories are guaranteed to thrill you, tingle the spine, or tickle the funny bone, and keep you turning the pages with fearful delight.Including such classics as “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Open Window” and eerie vintage illustrations, and also featuring haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore! AlsoFeaturing haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore!From the Trade Paperback edition.