Otto Penzler (born July 8, 1942) is a German-born American editor of

mystery fiction Mystery is a genre fiction, fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains wiktionary:mysterious, mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually prov ...

, and proprietor of

The Mysterious Bookshop The Mysterious Bookshop is an independent bookstore and publisher specializing in mystery fiction, located in New York City. It is one of the oldest mystery bookstores in the U.S. In addition to housing its own imprint, the shop contains the offi ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Biography

Born in Germany to a German-American mother and a German father, Penzler moved to

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

at age five after the death of his father. Penzler graduated from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, having studied English literature. He is the co-author the "Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection" for which he won an

Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

in 1977. He also wrote ''101 Greatest Movies of Mystery and Suspense'' (2000). For ''

The New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

'', he wrote ''The Crime Scene'', a popular weekly mystery fiction column that ran for five years. He has worked with authors including Elmore Leonard,

Nelson DeMille Nelson Richard DeMille (born August 23, 1943) is an American author of action adventure and suspense novels. His novels include '' Plum Island'', '' The Charm School'', and '' The Gold Coast''. DeMille has also written under the pen names Jack ...

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

Sue Grafton Sue Taylor Grafton (April 24, 1940 – December 28, 2017) was an American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the "alphabet series" (''"A" Is for Alibi'', etc.) featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fic ...

Mary Higgins Clark Mary Higgins Clark (born Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins (December 24, 1927 – January 31, 2020) was an American author of suspense novels. Each of her 51 books was a bestseller in the United States and various European countries, and all of he ...

, Stanley Ellin,

Robert Crais Robert Crais (pronounced ) (born June 20, 1953) is an American author of detective fiction. Crais began his career writing scripts for television shows such as ''Hill Street Blues'', ''Cagney & Lacey'', '' Quincy'', ''Miami Vice'' and ''L.A. Law ...

Michael Connelly Michael Joseph Connelly (born July 21, 1956) is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. Connelly is the bes ...

James Lee Burke James Lee Burke (born December 5, 1936) is an American author, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won Edgar Awards for ''Black Cherry Blues'' (1990) and ''Cimarron Rose'' (1998), and has also been presented with the Grand Master ...

and

Thomas H. Cook Thomas H. Cook (born September 19, 1947) is an American author, whose 1996 novel '' The Chatham School Affair'' received an Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America. Biography Thomas H. Cook was born in Fort Payne, Alabama, and holds a ba ...

. He founded The Mysterious Press, a publishing house devoted entirely to mystery and crime fiction, in 1975. Among the authors it published (works published in America for the first time, not reprints) are

Eric Ambler Eric Clifford Ambler OBE (28 June 1909 – 22 October 1998) was an English author of thrillers, in particular spy novels, who introduced a new realism to the genre. Also working as a screenwriter, Ambler used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for book ...

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social an ...

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

, Robert Bloch, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler,

Jerome Charyn Jerome Charyn (born May 13, 1937) is an American writer. With nearly 50 published works over a 50-year span, Charyn has a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life, writing in multiple ge ...

Len Deighton Leonard Cyril Deighton (; born 18 February 1929) is a British author. His publications have included cookery books, history and military history, but he is best known for his spy novels. After completing his national service in the Royal Air Fo ...

, Stanley Ellin,

James Ellroy Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, ...

Patricia Highsmith Patricia Highsmith (January 19, 1921 – February 4, 1995) was an American novelist and short story writer widely known for her psychological thrillers, including her series of five novels featuring the character Tom Ripley. She wrote 22 novel ...

P. D. James Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring th ...

, H. R. F. Keating,

Peter Lovesey Peter (Harmer) Lovesey (born 1936), also known by his pen name Peter Lear, is a British writer of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detec ...

Ed McBain Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Albert Lombino,(October 15, 1926 – July 6, 2005) was an American author and screenwriter best known for his 87th Precinct novels, written under his Ed McBain pen name, and the novel upon which the film '' Blackb ...

, Ross Macdonald,

Marcia Muller Marcia Muller (born September 28, 1944) is an American author of fictional mystery and thriller novels. Muller has written many novels featuring her ''Sharon McCone'' female private detective character. ''Vanishing Point'' won the Shamus Awar ...

Ellis Peters Edith Mary Pargeter (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995), also known by her ''nom de plume'' Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her transla ...

Ruth Rendell Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, (; 17 February 1930 – 2 May 2015) was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries. Rendell is best known for creating Chief Inspector Wexford.The Oxford Companion ...

Mickey Spillane Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have ...

, Ross Thomas,

Donald E. Westlake Donald Edwin Westlake (July 12, 1933 – December 31, 2008) was an American writer, with more than a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into ...

and

Cornell Woolrich Cornell George Hopley Woolrich ( ; December 4, 1903 – September 25, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer. He sometimes used the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley. His biographer, Francis Nevins Jr., rated Woolrich th ...

. In the 1980s it was publishing more than 100 books a year and the imprint was affiliated with major publishers in England (Century-Hutchinson-Arrow), Japan (Hayakwa Publishing), Italy (Mondadori) and Sweden (Bra Bocker). The Mysterious Book Club became a division of the

Book of the Month Club Book of the Month (founded 1926) is a United States subscription-based e-commerce service that offers a selection of five to seven new hardcover books each month to its members. Books are selected and endorsed by a panel of judges, and members ...

and Mysterious Audios an imprint with Dove Audio. After selling The Mysterious Press to

Warner Books Grand Central Publishing is a book publishing imprint of Hachette Book Group, originally established in 1970 as Warner Books when Warner Communications acquired the Paperback Library. When Time Warner sold their book publishing business to Hachet ...

in 1989, he created an Otto Penzler Books imprint for Macmillan (later Scribner). He moved the imprint to

Carroll & Graf Carroll & Graf Publishers was an American publishing company based in New York City, New York, known for publishing a wide range of fiction and non-fiction by both new and established authors, as well as issuing reprints of previously hard-t ...

, then to Harcourt (later Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). He also established the Otto Penzler Books imprint in London, first with

Quercus An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably '' ...

, then with Atlantic/Corvus, now with

Head of Zeus Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

. He reacquired The Mysterious Press name from

Hachette Hachette may refer to: * Hachette (surname) * Hachette (publisher), a French publisher, the imprint of Lagardère Publishing ** Hachette Book Group, the American subsidiary ** Hachette Distribution Services, the distribution arm See also * Hachett ...

in 2009; it was an imprint at

Grove Atlantic Grove Atlantic, Inc. is an American independent publisher, based in New York City. Formerly styled "Grove/Atlantic, Inc.", it was created in 1993 by the merger of Grove Press and Atlantic Monthly Press. As of 2018 Grove Atlantic calls itself "A ...

until 2021, when it became an independent imprint as part of Penzler Publishers. In 2011, he founded MysteriousPress.com, a publishing house devoted to electronic books featuring such authors as James Ellroy, Donald E. Westlake, Ellery Queen, Joseph Wambaugh, Ross Macdonald, Charlotte MacLeod and many others. Penzler founded The Mysterious Bookshop in mid-town Manhattan and after twenty-seven years moved to

Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stree ...

. It is now the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstore in the world. In 2002, he hosted a television series of great mystery films for the

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasti ...

channel. He has edited more than fifty anthologies of crime fiction of both reprints and newly commissioned stories, including the prestigious '' Best American Mystery Stories''—now Best Mystery Stories of the Year—since 1997. Penzler served on the board of directors of the

Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday. It presents the Edgar Award ...

for fourteen years and was awarded the organization's Ellery Queen Award and a Raven (its highest non-writing award). He won a second Edgar for editing "The Lineup", a collection of profiles of famous detectives, written by their creators. On April 8, 2010 Swann Galleries auctioned The Otto Penzler Collection of British Espionage and Thriller Fiction. The sale represented a select portion of Penzler's private library with works by

Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer who is best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., a ...

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...

William Le Queux William Tufnell Le Queux ( , ; 2 July 1864 – 13 October 1927) was an Anglo-French journalist and writer. He was also a diplomat (honorary consul for San Marino), a traveller (in Europe, the Balkans and North Africa), a flying buff who officia ...

H. C. McNeile Herman Cyril McNeile, MC (28 September 1888 – 14 August 1937), commonly known as Cyril McNeile and publishing under the name H. C. McNeile or the pseudonym Sapper, was a British soldier and author. Drawing on his experiences in the trenches ...

, E. Phillips Oppenheim, and Dennis Wheatley. Penzler also befriended many noted authors including Ambler,

Ken Follett Kenneth Martin Follett, (born 5 June 1949) is a British author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works. Many of his books have achieved high ranking on best seller lists. For example, in the ...

, John Gardner and others, who inscribed copies of their works. "British spy novels are among the greatest of all works in the mystery genre", Penzler said in the introduction to the Swann auction catalogue. "This is the first auction ever devoted entirely to this important literary genre." In Fall 2018, Penzler established Penzler Publishers, which launched American Mystery Classics, a collection of newly reissued mystery and detective fiction, many of which had been unavailable for several decades. Some of the American Mystery Classics authors include

Mary Roberts Rinehart Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876September 22, 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie.Keating, H.R.F., ''The Bedside Companion to Crime''. New York: Mysterious Press, 1989, p. 170. Rinehart published her fir ...

John Dickson Carr John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 – February 27, 1977) was an American author of detective stories, who also published using the pseudonyms Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He lived in England for a number of years, and is ...

, and

Ellery Queen Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve ...

, all distributed by WW Norton. In 2019, Penzler teamed up with Pegasus Books to launch Scarlet, a joint publishing venture specializing in psychological suspense aimed at female readers. Scarlet became an independent imprint as part of Penzler Publishers in 2020. The first title, ''An Inconvenient Woman'', the debut from author Stephanie Buelens, was released January 2020, distributed by W.W. Norton. Penzler lives in New York City and Connecticut.

Works

Publisher

* Otto Penzler Books. An imprint at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2005–2010). * The Armchair Detective Library. Reprinted classic crime fiction for collectors and libraries. * The Mysterious Press. Established in 1975. Sold to Time/Warner in 1989; reacquired by Penzler in 2009; an imprint at Grove/Atlantic until 2021; now an imprint of Penzler Publishers. * The Armchair Detective. A quarterly journal for studies of mystery and suspense fiction (17 years). * MysteriousPress.com. An eBook company distributed by Open Road Integrated Media. * Penzler Publishers. A publishing company that releases newly reissued mystery classics, distributed by WW Norton. * Scarlet. An imprint of Penzler Publishers specializing in psychological suspense aimed at female readers.

Series Editor

* ''The Best American Mystery Stories.'' Annual series from 1997 to 2021, with guest editors. Writer Robert B. Parker wrote "Otto Penzler knows more about crime fiction than most people know about anything, and proves it once more in this brilliant anthology." * ''The Best American Crime Writing.'' Annual series since 2002, with Thomas H. Cook and guest editors. * ''The Mysterious Bookshop Presents: The Best Mystery Stories of the Year''. Annual series since 2021, with guest editors.

Editor (Recent Books)

* ''The Crown Crime Companion : The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time'' Edited with Mickey Friedman. (1995) * ''Murder For Love'' (1996) * ''The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time'' (1998) * ''Murder For Revenge'' (1998) * ''Murder and Obsession'' (1999) * ''Best American Mystery Stories of the Century'' Edited with Tony Hillerman. (2000) * ''Murderer's Row'' (2001) * ''Murder On the Ropes'' (2001) * ''Dangerous Women'' (2005) * ''Murder is My Racquet'' (2005) * ''Murder in the Rough'' (2006) * ''Murder at the Racetrack'' (2006) * ''Murder at the Foul Line'' (2006) * ''The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps'' (2007) * ''Dead Man's Hand: Crime Fiction at the Poker Table'' (2007) * ''The Vicious Circle: Mystery and Crime Stories by Members of the Algonquin Round Table'' (2007) * ''The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives'' (2009) * ''The Vampire Archive'' (2009) * ''Black Noir: Mystery, Crime, and Suspense Stories by African-American Writers'' (2009) * ''Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop'' (2010) * ''The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense'' (2010) * ''The Best American Noir of the Century'' (2010) * ''The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories'' (2010) * ''Agents of Treachery'' (2010) * ''The Big Book of Adventure Stories'' (2011) * ''The Big Book of Ghost Stories'' (2012) * ''Kwik Krimes'' (2013) * ''The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries'' (2014) * ''The Best American Mystery Stories of the Nineteenth Century'' (2014) * ''The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories'' (2015) * ''The Big Book of Jack the Ripper'' (2016) * ''Silent Night, Deadly Night'' (2016) * ''The Big Book of Rogues and Villains'' (2017) * ''The Big Book of Female Detectives'' (2018) * ''The Big Book of Reel Murders'' (2019) * ''The Big Book of Espionage Stories'' (2020) * ''Golden Age Detective Stories'' (2021) * ''The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries'' (2021) * ''Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries'' (2022)

Guest appearances

* Author

Lawrence Block Lawrence Block (born June 24, 1938) is an American crime writer best known for two long-running New York-set series about the recovering alcoholic P.I. Matthew Scudder and the gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. Block was named a Grand Ma ...

wrote a Christmas story, "The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke", set in The Mysterious Bookshop, where Otto Penzler appeared in character. * Author Elmore Leonard's novel, ''Up In Honey's Room'', features an escaped World War II German soldier, a

Waffen SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands. The grew from th ...

major named Otto Penzler. *Author

's character

John Dortmunder John Archibald Dortmunder is a fictional character created by Donald E. Westlake. He is the protagonist of 14 novels and 11 short stories published between 1970 and 2009. He first appeared in the novel ''The Hot Rock'', published in 1970. Westl ...

evades police pursuit by crashing a poker game in the short story ''Give Till it Hurts''. The game's host is Otto (no last name) who lives above a bookstore; the other players are an agent, an editor, and two mystery authors.

Awards

* 2018. The Killer Nashville 2018 John Seigenthaler Legends Award. * 2015. Lifetime Achievement Award from the Strand Magazine. * 2012. The Jay and Deen Kogan Award for Excellence at NoirCon. * 2010. Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America. For The Lineup. Best Biographical/Critical Work * 2003. Raven Award from

. As owner of Mysterious Bookshop. * 1994. Ellery Queen Award from

. Contributions to mystery publishing. * 1977.

from

. For ''The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection.'' Best Critical/Biographical Work.

References

External links

The Mysterious BookshopAuction Catalogue for Penzler Sale at Swann Galleries
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Penzler, Otto 1942 births Living people University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni American book publishers (people) American book editors Writers from New York City Edgar Award winners The New York Sun people American encyclopedists American columnists The Bronx High School of Science alumni