Otto Penzler

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Otto Penzler's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    61 Books
  • First Book:
    September 1979
  • Latest Book:
    October 2024
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Multi-Author Series List

Bibliomysteries

Bibliomysteries: Crime in the World of Books and Bookstores (Aug-2017)
Bibliomysteries Volume Two: Stories of Crime in the World of Books and Bookstores (Aug-2018)

Book List in Order: 61 titles

  • The Great Detectives

    Interviews and conversations with twenty-six of the best-known contemporary detective-fiction and mystery writers are used to illuminate events leading to the creation of such characters as The Shadow, Quiller, Lew Archer, Matt Helm, and Dick Tracy...

  • The Private Lives of Private Eyes

  • Murder for Love

    in Murder for Love

    Eight men and eight women--the best writers in and out of the mystery field--render their very own, original take on love gone wrong in this fresh collection of stories. Animosity and affection intermingle dangerously in these delightfully deadly wor...

  • Murder for Revenge

    This irresistible collection of original stories was born of a deliciously wicked idea: ask twelve of America's best writers to explore a single subject -- people willing, often gleefully so, to kill for revenge. The result is a star-studded gatherin...

  • The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time

    From the Golden Age to Modern Masters, an anthology presents tales about such characters as Sherlock Holmes, Raffles, Kinsey Milhone, and Jimmy Valentine by writers including Stephen King, Dick Francis, Sue Grafton, Elmore Leonard, and P. D. James, a...

  • Murder and Obsession

    From lethal spikes to fatal kisses, from mad dogs to battle-crazed Englishmen, here indeed is Murder and Obsession, a star-studded collection of previously unpublished short mysteries.  In the wickedly entertaining tradition of his acclaimed collec...

  • 101 Greatest Mystery Films

  • Murder on the Ropes

    In Murder On The Ropes, boxing’s own set of mystery stories, who-dunnit, why and how are always the question. When the bell rings and the knockout is final, what will be the reason, the source, and the motivation for killing and destroying the worl...

  • Murderers' Row



  • The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

    This seventh installment of the premier mystery anthology boasts pulse-quickening stories from all reaches of the genre, selected by the world-renowned mystery writer Michael Connelly. His choices include a Prohibition-era tale of a scorned lover's r...

  • The Best American Mystery Stories 2004

    Now in its eighth year, this perennially popular anthology holds something for every reader. Encompassing all aspects of the genre, “this series can be counted on to showcase the best of mainstream mystery and crime fiction” (Booklist). Stephen K...

  • Murder Is My Racquet

    Murder is My Racquet is the most thrilling way to read about tennis, murder and intrigue. This collection of stories by famous mystery writers, including Ridley Pearson and Lawrence Block, deal with the prestige of the high-stakes race to become one ...

  • Dangerous Women

    Prepare to meet the most seductively female and the most shockingly fatal of femmes fatales, brought to you by seventeen of today's finest authors of mystery and suspense fiction. Award-winning editor Otto Penzler presents a collection of short and s...

  • Murder at the Racetrack

    Lawrence Block, in Keller by a Nose," asks what obsession holds more hazards than betting on the ponies. The answer will surprise you...Max Allan Collins's "That Kind of Nag" proves that it's bad to play the wrong horse, but worse to pick the wrong w...

  • Murder in the Rough

    Lawrence Block, Simon Brett, Ken Bruen, Christopher Coake, Stephen Collins, Tom Franklin, Jonathan Gash, Steve Hamilton, H.R.F. Keating, Laura Lippman, Bradford Morrow, Ian Rankin, John Sandford, William G. Tapply, and John Westermann, along with int...

  • Pulp Fiction: The Crimefighters

    Harlan Coben introduces a collection of the greatest of the great from the Golden Age of pulp fiction. Here are 14 classic tales of virtue versus villainy that will keep you riveted to your seat. Legendary writers you've already heard of like Dashiel...

  • The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

    The biggest, the boldest, the most comprehensive collection of Pulp writing ever assembled.Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight trai...

  • Dead Man's Hand

    If ever a subject begged to be associated with crime it is gambling, writes Otto Penzler in his introduction to this collection of short stories set at the poker table and beyond. In Walter Mosley's Mister In-Between, a bagman is sent to collec...

  • Black Noir

    Some of the best-known and most influential pieces of crime fiction have been from African American writers. Be it Walter Mosley’s great detective Easy Rawlins, or the mean streets of Harlem at the hands of Chester Himes, the stories and charact...



  • The Vampire Archives

    The Vampire Archives is the biggest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories, as well as the most comprehensive bibliography of vampire fiction ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there's no esca...

  • Murder at the Foul Line: Original Tales of Hoop Dreams and Deaths from Today's Great Writers

    Refereed by editor Otto Penzler, this anthology collects fourteen, original tales of buzzer-beating suspense and postgame mayhem. "In "Keller's Double Dribble," Lawrence Block tails a clueless hitman with courtside tickets to unplanned bloodshed ... ...

  • The Lineup

    A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and t...

  • Agents of Treachery

    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 acco...

  • Bloodsuckers

    in Bloodsuckers: The Vampire Archives Volume 1

    The Vampire Archives is the scariest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once you're in its clutches there's no escape. From the first to last bite, it's a bloody good read. Featuring:...

  • Fangs, Volume 2

    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 Mor...

  • A Mysterious Christmas

    Each year, for the past seventeen years, Otto Penzler, owner of the legendary Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, has commissioned an original story by a leading mystery writer. The requirements were that it be a mystery/ crime/suspense story, that...

  • The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

    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 d...

  • The Greatest Russian Crime and Suspense Stories

    Many of the greatest Russian authors, including Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Pushkin, produced crime and mystery fiction, a type of literature that was largely suppressed during the Soviet era because it did not glorify the state but, instead, ga...

  • Coffins, Volume 3

    A chill inducing and masterful collection of vampire tales, culled from the dark recesses of the nefarious and world renowned Vampires Archives. Coffins, the third volume in the mass market series, contains some of the best of the best of vampire...



  • The Big Book of Adventure Stories

    A hair-raising collection of adventure stories that's so big and enthralling if you open it you may never be seen again: enter at your own risk. Everyone loves adventure, and Otto Penzler has collected the best adventure stories of all time i...

  • Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!

    Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! is the darkest, the living-deadliest, scariest -- and dare we say most tasteful -- collection of zombie stories ever assembled. It's so good, it's a no-brainer. There is never a dull moment in the world of zombies. They...

  • Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop

    Each year, for the past seventeen years, Mysterious Bookshop proprietor Otto Penzler has commissioned an original Christmas story by a leading suspense writer. These stories were then produced as pamphlets, just 1,000 copies, and given to customers o...

  • Mark Twain's Medieval Romance

    A premier anthology of some of the finest mystery stories in literary history, including tales from Bradbury, Dahl, Huxley, O. Henry, and Twain. Tantalizing, as ingenious as they are devious, the classic stories in this continually arresting colle...

  • In Pursuit of Spenser

    **2013 Edgar Awards nominee in Critical/Biographical!** **2013 Anthony Award nominee in Best Critical Nonfiction** Join award-winning mystery editor Otto Penzler and a first-rate lineup of mystery writers as they go in pursuit of Spenser and the man...

  • The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense

    Many of the greatest Russian authors, including Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Pushkin, produced crime and mystery fiction, a type of literature that was largely suppressed during the Soviet era because it did not glorify the state but, instead, ga...

  • The Big Book of Ghost Stories

    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 alm...

  • Kwik Krimes

    Entire novels are often written about a single crime, detailing every gruesome, dark detail until the last drop of blood spatters across the page. Yet in this mystery anthology, renowned editor and author Otto Penzler weaves together to heart-stoppin...

  • The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

    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 any...

  • The Best of the Best American Mystery Stories: The First Ten Years

    A best-selling novelist and Edgar Award winner, Lisa Scottoline brings her mastery of the thriller genre as well as her wit and heart to this collection of the must-reads in mysteries. ...



  • The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century

    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 B...

  • The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century

    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 A...

  • The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

    "The Best American Mystery Stories 2014" will be selected by writing powerhouse ("USAToday") Laura Lippman. With her popular Tess Monaghan series and her "New York Times" best-selling standalone novels, Lippman has greatly expanded the boundaries of ...

  • The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked Room Mysteries

    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, ...

  • The Locked-Room Mysteries

    In this definitive collection, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler selects a multifarious mix from across the entire history of the locked room story, which should form the cornerstone of any crime reader's library.Virtually all of the great writ...

  • The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

    Presenting Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's latest anthology, The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories, the largest collection of Sherlockian tales ever assembled -- now in a deluxe hardcover edition, perfect for the collector and gift m...

  • The Big Book of Jack the Ripper

    Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's latest anthology takes its inspiration from the historical enigma whose name has become synonymous with fear: Jack the Ripper. Of the real-life serial killers whose gruesome acts have been splashed across...

  • The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

    Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's new anthology brings together the most cunning, ruthless, and brilliant criminals in mystery fiction, for the biggest compendium of bad guys (and girls) ever assembled. The best mysteries--whether detecti...

  • The Big Book of Female Detectives

    Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's new anthology brings together the most cunning, resourceful, and brilliant female sleuths in mystery fiction. A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original. For the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the most i...

  • Death Sentences

    'What treats you have in store!' IAN RANKIN. Who knew literature could be so lethal? Here are 20 specially commissioned stories about deadly books from the world's best crime writers. By turns hair-raising and playful, packed with twists and turns, l...



  • The Big Book of Reel Murders

    Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's new anthology rolls out the red carpet for the stories that Hollywood is made of. A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original. Lights! Camera! Action! The latest book in the Big Book series takes us behind t...

  • The Big Book of Espionage

    Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler is back with a new anthology that has gathered the intel on the world's greatest secret agents, declassified in these pages for the first time.Statesecrets. Double agents. Leaks. Otto Penzler brings you all thi...

  • Jack the Ripper

  • Sherlock

  • Golden Age Detective Stories

    The greatest detectives of the Golden Age investigate the most puzzling crimes of the eraSometimes, the police aren’t the best suited to solve a crime. Depending on the case, you may find that a retired magician, a schoolteacher, a Broadway produce...

  • The American Gun Mystery

    Ellery Queen investigates a murder at the circus rodeoWhen a washed up Hollywood cowboy-turned-circus rodeo actor is shot dead in the midst of his performance at a New York sports-palace, in front of thousands of onlookers, it seems obvious that some...

  • The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries

    Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler -- “detective fiction’s best editor and champion” (The Washington Post) -- returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants.Beh...

  • Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries

    Fourteen impossible crimes from the American masters of the formFor devotees of the Golden Age mystery, the impossible crime story represents the period’s purest form: it presents the reader with a baffling scenario (a corpse discovered in a window...

  • Golden Age Bibliomysteries

    In these classic mystery tales, literature is a matter of life or deathOf crime fiction’s many sub-genres, none is so reflexive and so intriguing as the “bibliomystery”: stories that involve crimes set, somehow, in the world of books. In V...

  • The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2023

    Amor Towles selects the best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Andrew Child, Jeffery Deaver, and T.C. Boyle. In his introduction to this volume, guest editor Amor Towles pays tribute to the forgotten person of the mystery story --...

  • Golden Age Whodunits

    Fifteen puzzling tales from the masters of the mystery genre Depending on who you ask, the term “whodunit” was first coined sometime around 1930, but the literary form predates that name by several decades. Still, it was in the years between the ...

  • Christmas Crimes at The Mysterious Bookshop

    Thirteen festive crime stories set in New York City’s beloved mystery bookstore 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 ...

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Otto Penzler has published 61 books.

The next book by Otto Penzler, Christmas Crimes at The Mysterious Bookshop, will be published in October 2024.

The first book by Otto Penzler, The Great Detectives, was published in September 1979.

No. Otto Penzler does not write books in series.
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