Penzler, Otto 1942–

(Irene Adler, Lucy Ferrier, Stephen Gregory, Charles A. Milverton)

PERSONAL: Born July 8, 1942, in Hamburg, Germany; immigrated to the United States, 1947; son of Otto (a chemist) and Jeanette (a secretary; maiden name, Kunmann) Penzler; married Evelyn Barbara Byrne (a teacher; divorced); married Carolyn Hartman (an illustrator), 1979 (divorced). Education: Attended University of Michigan.

ADDRESSES: Office—The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren St., New York, NY 10007. Agent—Nat Sobel, 146 E. 19th St., New York, NY 10023.

CAREER: New York Daily News, New York, NY, copy boy, 1963, editorial assistant, 1963–64, sportswriter, 1964–69; American Broadcasting Co. (ABC-TV), New York, senior sports publicist for television, 1969–73, newswriter, 1973, editor of corporate newsletter, "Happenings," 1973–75; Mysterious Press, New York, founder and chief executive officer, 1976–90; The Mysterious Bookshop, New York, owner, 1979–, Los Angeles, 1989–, and London, 1998–; Armchair Detective, founder, 1979; Otto Penzler Books, founder, 1993. Lecturer at various universities, 1975–. Military service: U.S. Army Reserve, 1964–70.

MEMBER: Mystery Writers of America (member of board of directors), Writers Guild of America East, and several Sherlock Holmes organizations, including Baker Street Irregulars.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edgar Allan Poe Award, Mystery Writers of America, 1977, for Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection; Ellery Queen Award, Mystery Writers of America, 1994; Raven Award, 2003.

WRITINGS:

FOR ADULTS

(Editor, with Evelyn B. Byrne) Attacks of Taste, Gotham Book Mart (New York, NY), 1971.

(With Chris Steinbrunner, Charles Shibuk, and others) Detectionary, privately printed, 1972, revised edition, Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY), 1977.

(With Jim Benagh) ABC's Wide World of Sports Encyclopedia, Stadia Sports/Dell (New York, NY), 1973, revised edition, 1974.

(With Chris Steinbrunner) Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, McGraw (New York, NY), 1976.

(Editor) Whodunit? Houdini?: Thirteen Tales of Magic, Murder, Mystery, Harper (New York, NY), 1976.

The Private Lives of Private Eyes, Spies, Crimefighters, and Other Good Guys, Grosset (New York, NY), 1977.

(Editor) The Great Detectives, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1978.

(Under pseudonym Irene Adler) Peter Frampton, Quick Fox (New York, NY), 1979.

(Under pseudonym Irene Adler) I Remember Jimmy: The Life and Times of Jimmy Durante, Arlington House (Westport, CT), 1980.

(Editor) S.S. Van Dine, The "Canary" Murder Case, Gregg Press (Boston, MA), 1980.

(With R.T. Edwards) Prize Meets Murder, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1984.

(With Lisa Drake) The Medical Center Murders, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1984.

(Editor, with Roland Hartman) Murder for Halloween, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) Murder for Love, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor) The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time, Dove Books (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor) Murder for Revenge, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor) Murder and Obsession, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1999.

Cornell Woolrich, Mysterious Bookshop (New York, NY), 1999.

S.S. Van Dine, Mysterious Bookshop (New York, NY), 1999.

Mickey Spillane, Mysterious Bookshop, 1999.

Earl Derr Biggers' Charlie Chan, Mysterious Bookshop (New York, NY), 1999.

Ian Fleming's James Bond, Mysterious Bookshop (New York, NY), 1999.

John P. Marquand's Mr. Moto, Mysterious Bookshop (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor, with Tony Hillerman) The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

(Editor) Murder on the Ropes: Original Boxing Mysteries, New Millennium Press (Beverly Hills, CA), 2001.

(Editor) Murder's Row: Baseball Mysteries, New Millennium Press (Beverly Hills, CA), 2001.

(Editor) Sudden Death: 1 Novella & 13 Superstar Short Stories from the Finest in Mystery & Suspense, New Millennium Press (Beverly Hills, CA), 2002.

(Editor) Dangerous Women, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(Editor) Murder Is My Racquet, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(Editor) Murder at the Foul Line, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 2006.

(Editor) Murder in the Rough, Mysterious Press (New York, NY), 2006.

JUVENILE

Sports Car Racing, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1975.

Demolition Derby, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1975.

Great Stock Car Racing, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1975.

Daredevils on Wheels, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1975.

Danger! White Water, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1976.

Hang Gliding: Riding the Wind, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1976.

Hunting the Killer Shark, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1976.

(Under pseudonym Irene Adler) Ballooning: High and Wild, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1976.

(Under pseudonym Lucy Ferrier) Diving the Great Barrier Reef, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1976.

(Under pseudonym Stephen Gregory) Bobsledding: Down the Chute!, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1976.

(Under pseudonym Stephen Gregory) Racing to Win: The Salt Flats, Troll Associates (Mahwah, NJ), 1976.

Contributor to books by others; general editor of the "$Whodunit?$" series for Pocket Books; editor, with guest editors, of "The Best American Mystery Stories" series, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997–; editor, with Thomas H. Cook, of "The Best American Crime-Writing" series, Vintage (New York, NY), 2002–; book reviewer and interviewer for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 1975–80. Contributor to periodicals, including People, TV Guide, and Games.

ADAPTATIONS: A number of Penzler's books have been adapted for audio.

SIDELIGHTS: Otto Penzler has turned his fascination with detective novels into a lucrative and many-faceted career. New York magazine correspondent Frederick Allen called Penzler "a self-made, one-man locked-room industry" whose unorthodox enterprises have proven a treat for mystery fans. Penzler has founded two publishing houses devoted to mysteries, and has owned bookstores that sell only mysteries, including The Mysterious Bookshop in New York, one of the oldest and most respected bookstores in the country.

Formerly a sports reporter and news writer for ABC, Penzler quit his job in 1976 to found Mysterious Press, a publishing house that produced limited edition mysteries by famous American and British authors for seven years before moving into new mysteries. Speaking of the Mysterious Press, Penzler once told CA: "Among its authors are Ross Thomas, Ruth Rendell, Donald E. Westlake, James Ellroy, and Eric Ambler." The Mysterious Press was sold to Time Warner in 1990, and Penzler moved on to found Otto Penzler Books in 1993. The new company published such ongoing series as the Sherlock Holmes Library of Sherlockiana, the Classic American Mystery Library, Otto Penzler's First Edition Library, and the Armchair Detective Library.

Having become a success in book publishing, Penzler also opened three bookstores devoted entirely to mystery and detective novels. In 1979 Penzler also began publishing the Armchair Detective, a periodical devoted entirely to mystery and detective fiction. "Everything is connected with my own interest," Penzler told Allen, "my hobby, to use the lightest word. My passion, my obsession, might be more accurate. Mysteries."

Penzler has himself written a number of books about mystery writing and fictional detectives. His Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection won the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America. In the mid-1980s he served as general editor for the Pocket Books "$Whodunit?$" series, a group of novels that offered a reward of fifteen thousand dollars to the first reader who could solve the mystery. These are similar to the old Ellery Queen stories in which the author would stop the narrative and ask the reader to provide a solution to the crime.

Penzler has been general editor of the "The Best American Mystery Stories" series, published by Houghton Mifflin since 1997. He invites guest editors who are also crime writers to help him choose the stories for the annual volumes. They have included Sue Grafton, Ed McBain, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Nelson DeMille, and Joyce Carol Oates. Each edition includes author profiles and is a mix of stories by writers from the unknown to the well known. Typically, Penzler selects about fifty stories, and the guest editor makes the final cut.

The 2000 edition includes "The Guilty Party" by the late Shel Silverstein. Some of the highlights of 2001 are "Lobster Night," by Russell Banks, "The Paperhanger," by William Gay, and "Her Hollywood" by Michael Hyde. Half of the stories in the 2002 edition are taken from other anthologies edited by Penzler. A Kirkus Reviews critic called Michael Malone's "Maniac Loose" "southern writing at its best," and also liked "Counting," by Fred Melton, "It Is Raining," by John Biguenet, and "The Mule Rustlers," by Joe Lansdale.

Booklist reviewer Bill Ott chose "The Jukebox King" by Doug Allyn as the outstanding entry in the 2003 volume that also contains stories by Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley, James Crumley, Peter Dexter, and George Pelecanos, among others. Ott noted that "this series can be counted on to showcase the best of mainstream crime fiction." The 2004 edition includes the work of big names like Joyce Carol Oates, who ap-pears in many of the volumes, as well as a number of newcomers. Oates selected the twenty stories for the 2005 edition, including stories by authors who write for e-zines and literary journals as well as traditional mystery writers. Keir Graff noted in Booklist that "in his foreword, Penzler praises the genre-blurring evolution of 'mystery' stories."

Author Tony Hillerman joined Penzler as editor of The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century. This collection features the giants of the genre, many of whom wrote earlier in the century, including Ellery Queen, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain, as well as contemporary writers like Sue Grafton and Sara Peretsky. Also included are names not normally associated with mysteries. They include Stephen King, Oates, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck. "This anthology is a cornerstone volume for any mystery library," concluded a Publishers Weekly contributor.

Penzler and Thomas H. Cook have coedited "The Best American Crime Writing" series, published by Vintage since 2002. In reviewing the debut volume, a Kirkus Reviews contributor commented that Penzler and Cook "have chosen entries of consistently high quality in a pleasing variety of tones and authorial stances." The writings come from a wide range of publications, including Spin, GQ, and Details. Many were originally published in the New Yorker, including Pat Jordan's O.J. Simpson-focused "The Outcast." Nancy Gibbs's "The Day of the Attack" was written the day after the attacks of September 11, 2001. In his article, Alex Prud'homme considers the sentence of death delivered in the Texas case of retarded Johnny Paul Penry. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "the majority of the pieces have a finger on the cultural pulse, but the best offer something more."

John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, is guest editor for the 2003 edition, which includes articles that focus on such subjects as the Daniel Pearl murder, genocide in Rwanda, and dog mauling. Three stories from the Atlantic can be found in the 2004 volume, including one by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in which he defends his cousin, Michael Skakel, who was convicted of the murder of Martha Moxley. John Krakauer writes about Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, and Scott Turow comments on his change in stance regarding capital punishment.

In addition to the themes expected in an anthology of this type, the 2005 edition contains articles that consider terrorism, medical malpractice, and sexual slavery. Clive Thompson's "The Virus Underground" considers the risk of opening e-mail attachments. Graff concluded in a Booklist review that "it's risky to claim anything is the best, but it would be tough to better this collection."

Penzler is also editor of a series of sports-related anthologies, including Murder Is My Racquet and Murder at the Foul Line. The former is a collection that includes lighter stories, including Kinky Friedman's "Tennis, Anyone?," and more gripping tales, like "Stephen Longacre's Greatest Match," by Stephen Hunter. Booklist reviewer David Pitt called Lawrence Block's story about a tennis player with anger-management issues "a standout."

Murder at the Foul Line, called "a collection to satisfy mystery buffs and hoop fanatics alike," by Booklist contributor Wes Lukowsky, contains fourteen original stories by top writers that include Block, Parker, and Pelecanos, all of whom blend basketball and suspense.

Penzler told CA: "My professional life is now shrouded in mystery, but it was not always so; it used to be a sporting life. After being sports editor of the Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan's newspaper, I decided that a career in that field was a lot better than working for a living, so I got a job at New York Daily News and soon had my dream fulfilled (a compromise dream, since I had always really wanted to be a professional baseball player). While earning forty-two dollars a week, I started to collect rare books with a sophistication that would have dismayed a nine-year-old. I collected 'English and American literary first editions and manuscripts,' not fully appreciating the fact that one needed several millions of dollars to do it correctly. The collection reflected my reading tastes: nineteenth-century Victorian novels, English romantic poets, and the best detective fiction, which soon became a habit (literally going two days without food in order to buy a book) and the collection is now universally regarded as the finest collection of mystery and detective fiction in private hands. This collection forms the backbone of my research library and is largely responsible for the many books and articles that I've produced which involve this type of literature.

"The affection for detective stories has a sound philosophical base (although I certainly didn't realize it in my early years)—a somewhat conservative and old-fashioned view of right and wrong, good and evil, and modes of behavior. The detective story rewards virtue and punishes sin, with the detective generally serving the God-like role of final judge.

"The Mysterious Press was founded because of the belief that the standards of morality established in detective stories will always exist, despite doomsday philosophers, and that mysteries will therefore endure as well. A genuine affection for books—both for their content and as physical objects—inspired the creation of the publishing house. As president of the company, I make all decisions about a book's production and therefore publish the kind of book I would like to see others publish. The press has been successful only because of the cooperation of some of the finest writers in this honorable genre (they gave me the opportunity to publish their books) and because of the many collectors and aficionados who have supported it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journalism Review, August-September, 2004, Carl Sessions Stepp, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2004, p. 79.

Booklist, April 1, 2000, Bill Ott, review of The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, p. 1437; September 15, 2000, Connie Fletcher, review of The Best American Mystery Stories, 2000, p. 221; May 15, 2002, David Pitt, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2002, p. 1558; September 15, 2002, Bill Ott, review of The Best American Mystery Stories, 2002, p. 209; November 15, 2003, Bill Ott, review of The Best American Mystery Stories, 2003, p. 583; July, 2004, Alan Moores, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2004, p. 1804; September 15, 2004, David Pitt, review of The Best American Mystery Stories, 2004, p. 211; November 15, 2004, Connie Fletcher, review of Dangerous Women, p. 564; March 15, 2005, David Pitt, review of Murder Is My Racquet, p. 1270; September 1, 2005, Keir Graff, reviews of The Best American Crime Writing, 2005, p. 27, and The Best American Mystery Stories, 2005, p. 68; December 1, 2005, Wes Lukowsky, review of Murder at the Foul Line, p. 29.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2002, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2002, p. 791; August 15, 2002, review of The Best American Mystery Stories, 2002, p. 1177; July 15, 2003, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2003, p. 960; October 1, 2004, review of Dangerous Women, p. 943; March 15, 2005, review of Murder Is My Racquet, p. 321; October 15, 2005, review of Murder at the Foul Line, p. 1111.

Kliatt, May, 2005, Janet Julian, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2004, p. 40.

Library Journal, June 15, 2002, Sarah Jent, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2002, p. 80.

New York, May 10, 1982, Frederick Allen, interview with Penzler.

Publishers Weekly, March 6, 2000, review of The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, p. 85; May 28, 2001, review of Murderers' Row: Baseball Mysteries, p. 53; October 1, 2001, review of Murder on the Ropes: Boxing Mysteries, p. 41; June 3, 2002, review of Sudden Death: 1 Novella & 13 Superstar Short Stories from the Finest in Mystery & Suspense, p. 65; June 10, 2002, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2002, p. 48; July 21, 2003, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2003, p. 187; July 5, 2004, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2004, p. 50; November 15, 2004, review of Dangerous Women, p. 44; April 18, 2005, review of Murder Is My Racquet, p. 46; July 18, 2005, review of The Best American Crime Writing, 2005, p. 201; October 10, 2005, review of Murder at the Foul Line, p. 39.