The Big Book of Rogues and Villains, Otto Penzler
The Big Book of Rogues and Villains, Otto Penzler
List: $39.99 | Sale: $28.00
Club: $19.99

The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

Author: Otto Penzler

Series: Big Book

Narrator: George Spelvin, Shaun Grindell

Unabridged: 52 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/04/2020


Synopsis

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 have one thing in common: a memorable perpetrator. For every Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade in noble pursuit, there's a Count Dracula, a Lester Leith, or a Jimmy Valentine. These are the rogues and villains who haunt our imaginations—and who often have more in common with their heroic counterparts than we might expect. Now, for the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the iconic traitors, thieves, con men, sociopaths, and killers who have crept through the mystery canon over the past 150 years, captivating and horrifying readers in equal measure. The handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most depraved of psyches, from iconic antiheroes like Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin and Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu to contemporary delinquents like Lawrence Block's Ehrengraf and Donald Westlake's Dortmunder, and include unforgettable tales by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, Jack London, H. G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis, O. Henry, Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charteris, Erle Stanley Gardner, Edward D. Hoch, Max Allan Collins, Loren D. Estleman, and many more.

About Otto Penzler

Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, founded The Mysterious Press in 1975, now an imprint at Grove/Atlantic, and publishes classic crime fiction through MysteriousPress.com. Penzler has won two Edgar Awards, MWA's Ellery Queen Award, and the Raven Award. He has been given Lifetime Achievement awards by Noircon and the Strand Magazine.


Reviews

Goodreads review by ☘Tara on September 27, 2017

I’m a big fan of short story collections because they allow you to read small pieces at a time and get a wide variety of material. I am also a fan of the Mystery genre and how it has evolved from way back in the day when women were still property through now when our voices are now rivaling those of......more

Goodreads review by Gwen - Chew & Digest Books - on January 04, 2018

This was so much of a chunkster and I enjoyed every moment until I got to the more current stories, called The Moderns, in the book. The rest was pure perfect classic devilry, whether Rogue or Villan. At times it was stomach turning, I'm referring to the "Yellow Peril" era of such damn bigotry that I......more

Goodreads review by Arnis on August 01, 2021

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Goodreads review by Judy on August 24, 2017

Thank you to the Amazon Vine Voices program and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard for a review copy of this book. I absolutely revel in reading short stories. Most often I concentrate on mystery and suspense so this collection, while not being a collection of those specific genres, was full immersion time f......more

Goodreads review by EuroHackie on September 11, 2023

I'm sure these "Big Books" are meant to be dipped into and out of on a sporadic basis; when you get them from the library, however, that's rather hard to do. Taken altogether, this was something of a slog to get through; I felt the middle of the book particularly dragged, with long stories that I di......more