Otto Penzler

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Michigan

Collects the editor's all-time favorite holiday crime stories, including tales by such authors as Arthur Conan Doyle, Sara Paretsky, Peter Lovesey, O. Henry, Damon Runyon, Agatha Christie, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

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Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Colorado

Second collection by noted authors on vampires.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

The Vampire Archives, Volume 2

Presents an anthology of twenty works about vampires, including contributions by H.P. Lovecraft, Anne Rice, Richard Laymon, and Clive Barker.

Fangs

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Tony Hillerman

Oversized Paperback (4 to 6 lbs)

Texas

In this essential distillation of American suspense, 100 years worth of peerless tales are collected into a volume where giants of the genre abound: Raymond Chandler, Lawrence Block, Sue Grafton, Elmore Leonard, and Sara Paretsky.

The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century

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H. F. Heard

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

California

In a quiet village far from the noise of Victorian London, Sydney Silchester lives the life of a recluse led by two passions: privacy and honey. He gives up the former only when his stores of the latter run low. But when his honey supplier is found stung to death by her hive, the search for a new beekeeper takes Sydney to Mr. Mycroft, a brilliant man who has retired to Sussex to take up precisely this occupation, and who shares many traits with the great detective, Sherlock Holmes. Upon hearing of the tragic death of the village's other beekeeper, Mycroft, himself no stranger to crime-solving, immediately senses the bloody hand of murder. But what villain would have the mad intelligence to train an army of killer bees? With Sydney at his side, Mycroft embarks on a life-threatening search for the perpetrator of this most diabolical crime.Hailed by author, critic, and famed Sherlock Holmes scholar Christopher Morley as the only worthwhile continuation of the Holmes novels, A Taste for Honey is an engaging and terrifying mystery that proves enjoyable even to those with little to no knowledge of Doyle's characters.

A Taste for Honey

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John Dickson Carr

A murdered man in a top hat leads Dr. Gideon Fell to a killer with a sick sense of humor At the hand of an outrageous prankster, top hats are going missing all over London, snatched from the heads of some of the city’s most powerful people—but is the hat thief the same as the person responsible for stealing a lost story by Edgar Allan Poe, the manuscript of which has just disappeared from the collection of Sir William Bitton? Unlike the manuscript, the hats don’t stay stolen for long, each one reappearing in unexpected and conspicuous places shortly after being taken: on the top of a Trafalgar Square statue, hanging from a Scotland Yard lamppost, and now, in the foggy depths of the Tower of London, on the head of a corpse with a crossbow bolt through the heart. Amateur detective and lexicographer Dr. Gideon Fell is on the case, and when the dead man is identified as the nephew of the collector, he discovers that the connections underlying the bizarre and puzzling crimes may be more intimate than initially expected. Reprinted for the first time in thirty years, the second novel in the Dr. Gideon Fell series, which need not be read in any order, finds the iconic character investigating one of the most extraordinary murders of his career. A baffling whodunnit with menace at every turn, The Mad Hatter Mystery proves that Carr is the “unexcelled master of creepy erudition, swift-moving excitement and suspense through atmosphere” (New York Times).

The Mad Hatter Mystery

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Charlotte Armstrong

To catch a murderous theater impresario, a young woman takes a deadly new role The note discovered beside Rosaleen Wright’s hanged body is full of reasons justifying her suicide—but it lacks her trademark vitality and wit, and, most importantly, her signature. So the note alone is far from enough to convince her best friend Jane that Rosaleen was her own murderer, even if the police quickly accept the possibility as fact. Instead, Jane suspects Rosaleen’s boss, New York theater impresario Luther Grandison. To the world at large, he’s powerful and charismatic, but Rosaleen’s letters to Jane described a duplicitous, greedy man who would no doubt kill to protect his secrets. If Rosaleen stumbled upon one such secret, it could have led to an untimely demise—and Jane risks a similar end when she takes a job with Grandison’s company, tangling with one of Broadway’s deadliest actors in a desperate play for the truth. A playwright before she turned to crime fiction, Charlotte Armstrong drew from her experience in the theater for her fourth novel, The Unsuspected. The book inspired the 1947 film of the same name.

The Unsuspected

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Features over fifteen mystery short stories set during Christmas, with some of the action taking place at the editor's real-life Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.

Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop

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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 Award-winning editor Otto Penzler has collected sixty-eight of the all-time best impossible-crime stories from almost two hundred years of the genre. In addition to the many classic examples of the form--a case of murder in a locked room or otherwise inaccessible place, solved by a brilliant sleuth--this collection expands the definition of the locked room to include tales of unbelievable thefts and incredible disappearances. Among these pages you'll find stories with evocative titles like "The Flying Death", "The Man From Nowhere", "A Terribly Strange Bed", and "The Theft of the Bermuda Penny", not to mention appearances by some of the cleverest characters in all of crime, including Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Georges Simenon's Jules Maigret, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op, and many more.
 
Featuring
   * Unconventional means of murder
   * Pilfered jewels
   * Shocking solutions
 
Includes
   * Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", the first detective story and            the first locked-room mystery
   * Masters of the short story form: Edward D. Hoch, Ellery Queen, Carter Dickson, and       Stanley Ellin

A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL

The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

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Ed McBain

Ohio

In its brief existence, THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES has established itself as a peerless suspense anthology. Compiled by the best-selling mystery novelist Ed McBain, this year's edition boasts nineteen outstanding tales by such masters as John Updike, Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, and Joyce Carol Oates as well as stories by rising stars such as Edgar Award winners Tom Franklin and Thomas H. Cook. The 1999 volume is a spectacular showcase for the high quality and broad diversity of the year's finest suspense, crime, and mystery writing. "Keller's Last Refuge" by Lawrence Block, "Safe" by Gary A. Braunbeck, "Fatherhood" by Thomas H. Cook, "Wrong Time, Wrong Place" by Jeffery Deaver, "Netmail" by Brendan DuBois, "Redneck" by Loren D. Estleman, "And Maybe the Horse Will Learn to Sing" by Gregory Fallis, "Poachers" by Tom Franklin, "Hitting Rufus" by Victor Gischler, "Out There in the Darkness" by Ed Gorman, "Survival" by Joseph Hansen, "A Death on the Ho Chi Minh Trail" by David K. Harford, "An Innocent Bystander" by Gary Krist, "The Jailhouse Lawyer" by Phillip M. Margolin, "Secret, Silent" by Joyce Carol Oates, "In Flanders Fields" by Peter Robinson, "Dry Whiskey" by David B. Silva, "Sacrifice" by L. L. Thrasher, "Bech Noir" by John Updike

The Best American Mystery Stories 1999

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C. J. Box

A collection of the year's best mystery short fiction selected by New York Times best-selling and Edgar Award-winning author C. J. Box.

C. J. Box , #1 New York Times best-selling author of the hugely popular Joe Pickett series, selects the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year in this annual "treat for crime-fiction fans" (Library Journal).
 

The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

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Mary Roberts Rinehart

Connecticut

An old woman suspects her own household staff of murder in this classic mystery by the author known as the American Agatha Christie.

The Door 2024

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Illinois

"Fans of such notables as C.J. Box, Peter Straub, and Joyce Carol Oates chiefly known for their novels will be pleased to see how well they write at shorter length."--Publishers Weekly

"Some people might tell you that crime short stories, unlike the more precious kind, are a kind of fictional ghetto, full of cardboard characters and clichéd situations. Not true. These stories are remarkably free of bullshit--al­though there's always a little, just to grease the wheels," writes guest editor John Sandford in his introduction. From an isolated Wyoming ranch to the Detroit boxing underworld, and from kidnapping and adultery in the Hollywood Hills to a serial killer loose in a nursing home, The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 hosts an entertaining abundance of crime, psychological suspense, and bad intentions.



The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 includes

C. J. BOX, GERRI BRIGHTWELL, JEFFERY DEAVER, BRENDAN DUBOIS,

TRINA COREY, CRAIG JOHNSON, JOYCE CAROL OATES, PETER STRAUB,

and others

The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

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Erle Stanley Gardner

New Jersey

In one of Perry Mason’s most memorable cases ever, the character who inspired the HBO limited series risks his freedom to prove the innocence of an unidentified client. The bait is half of a $10,000 bill, delivered to Perry Mason by a man who promises the second half of the note should his companion, a silent masked woman, ever require the lawyer’s services. When a dead body is discovered soon after, Mason feels the hook—but how can one prove the innocence of a person whose identity is unknown? Suspecting that he’s been set-up, but curious nonetheless, Perry sets out to solve the mystery from the ground up, beginning with the face behind the veil. The more he learns, the more complex his investigation becomes. Uncovering a convoluted case of stock fraud, divorce, and inheritance, Mason’s nearly left reeling—that is until, with the help of Della Street and Paul Drake, he pulls off one of his most daring gambits ever to finally cast light on the killer. Filled with memorable characters, a multitude of motives, and just a few red herrings, The Case of the Baited Hook is classic Perry Mason, showcasing the character’s brilliance and pizazz with a plot that pushes his powers into overdrive. As puzzling as it is entertaining, the book exemplifies the style that made Erle Stanley Gardner one of the most popular authors of the twentieth century. “Millions of Americans never seem to tire of Gardner’s thrillers.” —The New York Times DON’T MISS THE NEW HBO ORIGINAL SERIES PERRY MASON, BASED ON CHARACTERS FROM ERLE STANLEY GARDNER’S NOVELS, STARRING EMMY AWARD WINNER MATTHEW RHYS

The Case of the Baited Hook

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

This year's guest editor, Sue Grafton, has put together a wonderfully diverse collection of stories to surprise and satisfy all fans of the genre. In this volume, best-selling writers such as Mary Higgins Clark, Walter Mosley, Lawrence Block, Jay McInerney, and Donald E. Westlake stand alongside an impressive array of new talent. As Grafton writes in her introduction, "Nowhere is iniquity, wrongdoing, and reparation more satisfying to behold than in the well-crafted yarns spun by the writers represented here."Already a bestseller in its first year, this year's collection of The Best American Mystery Stories promises to keep readers intrigued and coming back for more.

The Best American Mystery Stories 1998

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Arizona

Fourteen Original Tales of Love, Death, and Tennis by Today's Great Writers

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 of the few international tennis stars, the promotional opportunities involved, the elimination of tournament competition, and the strategy of tennis in general. Viewed as an elite game since its beginnings, tennis is the perfect sport for one-on-one play and murder! Authors also include Kinky Friedman, John Harvey, James W. Hall, Lisa Scottoline and many more!

Murder Is My Racquet

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some bending at the corners and in the spine 

Withdrawn library copy, cover plastic has been removed.

Presents a collection of mystery stories selected from magazines in the United States and Canada

The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

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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 of the bookstore as a Christmas present. Now, all seventeen tales have been collected in one volume, showcasing the talents of:

 * Charles Ardai
 * Lisa Atkinson
 * George Baxt
 * Lawrence Block
 * Mary Higgins Clark
 * Thomas H. Cook
 * Ron Goulart
 * Jeremiah Healy
 * Edward D. Hoch
 * Rupert Holmes
 * Andrew Klavan
 * Michael Malone
 * Ed McBain
 * Anne Perry
 * S. J. Rozan
 * Jonathan Santlofer
 * Donald E. Westlake

Some of these stories are humorous, others suspenseful, and still others are tales of pure detection, but all of them together make up a charming collection and a perfect Christmas gift for all ages.



Washington

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.

Including Stephen King, Tanith Lee, Dan Simmons, Bram Stoker, and Many Many More

Featuring:

·nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; The macabre dens of the immortal
·nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Unexpected guests
·nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Shadowy figures
·nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Ancient mysteries

Bloodsuckers

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Florida

The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age--The '20s, '30s And '40s

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 train—a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best. Including: • Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett. • Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form. • A never before published Dashiell Hammett story. • Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many many more of whom you’ve probably never heard. • Three deadly sections–The Crimefighters, The Villains, and Dames–with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura Lippman Featuring: • Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good. • A kid so smart–he’ll die of it. • A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning–the hard way–never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger. • The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims.

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

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Kentucky

In THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES OF THE CENTURY, best-selling author Tony Hillerman and mystery expert Otto Penzler present an unparalleled treasury of American suspense fiction that every fan will cherish. Offering the finest examples from all reaches of the genre, this collection charts the mystery's eminent history from the turn-of-the-century puzzles of Futrelle, to the seminal pulp fiction of Hammett and Chandler, to the mystery story's rise to legitimacy in the popular mind, a trend that has benefited masterly writers like Westlake, Hunter, and Grafton. Nowhere else can readers find a more thorough, more engaging, more essential distillation of American crime fiction.
Penzler, the Best American Mystery Stories series editor, and Hillerman winnowed this select group out of a thousand stories, drawing on sources as diverse as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Esquire, Collier's and The New Yorker. Giants of the genre abound -- Raymond Chandler, Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, Lawrence Block, Ellery Queen, Sara Paretsky, and others -- but the editors also unearthed gems by luminaries rarely found in suspense anthologies: William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Damon Runyon, Harlan Ellison, James Thurber, and Joyce Carol Oates. Mystery buffs and newcomers alike will delight in the thrilling stories and top-notch writing of a hundred years' worth of the finest suspense, crime, and mystery writing.

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New York Times best-selling author of ten genre-bending novels Jonathan Lethem helms this collection of the year's best mystery short fiction. Jonathan Lethem, "one of America's greatest storytellers" (Washington Post), selects the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year in this annual "treat for crime-fiction fans" (Library Journal).

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Otto Penzler

The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

Otto Penzler

The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

Otto Penzler

Fangs

Tony Hillerman; Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century

Otto Penzler; H. F. Heard

A Taste for Honey

John Dickson Carr; Otto Penzler

The Mad Hatter Mystery

Charlotte Armstrong; Otto Penzler

The Unsuspected

Otto Penzler

Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop

Otto Penzler

The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

Ed McBain; Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories 1999

C. J. Box; Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

Mary Roberts Rinehart; Otto Penzler

The Door 2024

John Sandford; Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

Erle Stanley Gardner; Otto Penzler

The Case of the Baited Hook

Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories 1998

Otto Penzler

Murder Is My Racquet

C. J. Box; Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

Otto Penzler

Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop

Otto Penzler

Fangs

Otto Penzler

Bloodsuckers

Otto Penzler

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

Tony Hillerman; Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century

Otto Penzler; Otto Penzler

The Best American Mystery Stories 2019