Bøger udgivet af Penzler Publishers

Justine Poole provides security for wealthy and high-profile Hollywood stars, but that all changes when a job puts her in the limelight. When she prevents a brazen robbery at the Beverly Hills home of two of her clients-killing two of the five armed robbers in the process-she is initially lauded in the media as a local hero. But the spotlight soon puts her in the crosshairs of the crime kingpin behind the burglaries.Unable to stand the embarrassment of his lackeys having been defeated by a lone woman, Mr. Conger puts in a call to the one man who can make his problems disappear. Known for his swiftness and subtlety, Leo Sealy will kill anyone for a price. All he needs is a name and a face, any starting point to pick up his victim's trail. Luckily for him, the local news is as eager as he is for any information about the heroic bodyguard-and quick to broadcast their findings, regardless of what it might mean for her safety. But Sealy isn't prepared for just how quick and resourceful Justine can be...So begins a cat and mouse game that only Thomas Perry-"master of nail-biting suspense" (Los Angeles Times)-could devise, featuring two characters who know more about deadly pursuit than anyone else in the business. As the hardened killer stalks her, Justine learns that the fickle media landscape can turn its celebration into condemnation at a moment's notice, and soon finds that public opinion can be every bit as fatal as organized crime.

Cameron Winter is known for having a sense about crime. His background as a spy trained his mind-and his body-for action, and his current role as an English professor gives him a sharp understanding of human nature. But beyond that, he was born with a "strange habit of mind"-the ability to recreate detailed crime scenes in his imagination and dissect the motives and encounters that produced them. And after reading a puzzling news story about a wealthy family killed in a small town in the Chicago suburbs, he can't resist the chance to apply this deductive power in the pursuit of justice for the victims.Three members of the family, along with their live-in nanny, were pulled from their burning mansion, already dead from gunshot wounds. The only survivor is a young boy whose memory of the event raises more questions than answers. The police seem happy to settle on a simple explanation and arrest the most obvious suspect-but Winter knows that obvious solutions are seldom the correct ones, and all too often hide a darker truth.While Winter's investigation is welcomed by many who knew the victims, the lead detective makes it clear he not only wants Winters to stop looking for answers, but to stay out of his town altogether. Winter begins to understand why as he slowly uncovers crimes and unsavory behavior that had been ignored long before the killings, and in the process grows increasingly determined to find the real killer and expose the rot beneath the town's sanitized façade. And as the inquiry brings all-too-familiar sins to the surface, he'll have to confront his own inner demons once and for all.Insightful and atmospheric, The House of Love and Death is a penetrating mystery with a plot that cuts straight to the dark heart of some of modern America's most pressing issues.

Jen Dunne is forty-two and getting married for the second time, but that doesn't mean she can't go all out for her bachelorette weekend. She's booked three days of super-exclusive luxury accommodation on a remote Scottish island for herself and six other women. There's Jen's tennis coach and a fellow tennis-playing fashionista; a famous pop star and that pop star's estranged ex-bandmate; plus Jen's future sister-in-law and the sister of her first husband.The helicopter won't be back for seventy-hours and they have the island all to themselves-or so they think. As the cocktails flow, old grudges begin to emerge and tempers to fray. Then one of the women goes missing. The others receive a threatening message urging one of them to confess a terrible secret. But whose secret is it? Each woman has a darkness in her past she's reluctant to admit. But they'll all have to come clean if they want to make it off the island alive.

Legendary science fiction author Fowler Faulkes may be dead, but his creation, the iconic Dr. Derringer, lives on in popular culture. Or, at least, the character would live on if not for Faulkes's predatory and greedy heir Hilary, who, during his time as the inflexible guardian of the estate, has created countless enemies in the relatively small community of writers of the genre. So when he is stabbed nearly to death in a room with only one door, which nobody was seen entering or exiting, Foulkes suspects a writer. Fearing that the assailant will return, he asks for police protection, and when more potentially-fatal encounters follow, it becomes clear to Detective Terry Marshall and his assistant, the inquisitive nun, Sister Ursula, that death awaits Mr. Foulkes around every corner. Now, they'll have to work overtime to thwart the would-be murderer-a task that requires a deep dive into the strange, idiosyncratic world of science fiction in its early days.With characters based heavily on Anthony Boucher's friends at the Manana Literary Society, including Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and Jack Parsons, Rocket to the Morgue is both a classic locked room mystery and an enduring portrait of a real-life writing community. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, the book is a must-read for fans of mysteries and science fiction alike.

Hildegarde Withers is just your average school teacher-with above-average skills in the art of deduction. The New Yorker often finds herself investigating crimes led only by her own meddlesome curiosity, though her friends on the NYPD don't mind when she solves their cases for them. After plans for a grand tour of Europe are interrupted by Germany's invasion of Poland, Miss Withers heads to sunny Los Angeles instead, where her vacation finds her working as a technical advisor on the set of a film adaptation of the Lizzie Borden story. The producer has plans for an epic retelling of the historical killer's patricidal spree-plans which are derailed when a screenwriter turns up dead. While the local authorities quickly deem his death accidental, Withers suspects otherwise and calls up a detective back home for advice. The two soon team up to catch a wily killer.At once a pleasantly complex locked room mystery and a hilarious look at the foibles of Hollywood, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan finds Palmer, a screenwriter himself, at his most perceptive. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, this riotously funny novel shows why Hildegarde Withers was among the most beloved detectives of the Golden Age American mystery novel.

Miss Adams is a nurse, not a detective-at least, not technically speaking. But while working as a nurse, one does have the opportunity to see things police can't see and an observant set of eyes can be quite an asset when crimes happen behind closed doors. Sometimes Detective Inspector Patton rings Miss Adams when he needs an agent on the inside. And when he does, he calls her "Miss Pinkerton" after the famous detective agency.Everyone involved seems to agree that mild-mannered Herbert Wynne wasn't the type to commit suicide but, after he is found shot dead, with the only other possible killer being his ailing, bedridden aunt, no other explanation makes sense. Now the elderly woman is left without a caretaker and Patton sees the perfect opportunity to employ Miss Pinkerton's abilities. But when she arrives at the isolated country mansion to ply her trade, she soon finds more intrigue than anyone outside could have imagined and-when she realizes a killer is on the loose-more terror as well.Reprinted for the first time in twenty years, Miss Pinkerton is a suspenseful tale of madness and murder. The book served as the basis for a 1932 film with the same title, and its titular character appeared in several others of Rinehart's most popular novels.

Unoccupied and unsupervised while mother is working, the children of widowed crime writer Marion Carstairs find diversion wherever they can. So when the kids hear gunshots at the house next door, they jump at the chance to launch their own amateur investigation-and after all, why shouldn't they? They know everything the cops do about crime scenes, having read about them in mother's novels. They know what her literary detectives would do in such a situation, how they would interpret the clues and handle witnesses. Plus, if the children solve the puzzle before the cops, it will do wonders for the sales of mother's novels. But this crime scene isn't a game at all; the murder is real, and when its details prove more twisted than anything in mother's fiction, they'll have to enlist Marion's help to sort them out. Or is that just part of their plan to hook her up with the lead detective on the case?The basis for the 1946 film with the same name, Home Sweet Homicide is the novel that launched Craig Rice to literary fame. The book, a comedic crime story that pokes fun at the conventions of the genre, finds "the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction" at her most entertaining.

The offices of foreign literature publisher and renowned stamp collector Donald Kirk are often host to strange activities, but the most recent occurrence­-the murder of an unknown caller, found dead in an empty waiting room-is unlike any that has come before. Nobody, it seems, entered or exited the room, and yet the crime scene clearly has been manipulated, leaving everything in the room turned backwards and upside down. Stuck through the back of the corpse's shirt are two long spears-and a tangerine is missing from the fruit bowl. Enter amateur sleuth Ellery Queen, who arrives just in time to witness the discovery of the body, only to be immediately drawn into a complex case in which no clue is too minor or too glaring to warrant careful consideration.Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, The Chinese Orange Mystery is revered to this day for its challenging conceit and inventive solution. The book is a "fair-play" mystery in which readers have all the clues needed to solve the crime. In 1981, the novel was selected as one of the top ten locked room mysteries of all time by a panel of mystery-world luminaries that included Julian Symons, Edward D. Hoch, Howard Haycraft, and Otto Penzler.

An all-around skeptic when it comes to the supernatural, literature professor William Porter gives no credence to claims that Twin Towers, the seaside manor he's just inherited, might be haunted. He finds nothing mysterious about the conditions in which his Uncle Horace died, leaving the property behind; it was a simple case of cardiac arrest, nothing more. So, though his wife, more attuned to spiritual disturbance, refuses to occupy the main house, Porter convinces her to spend a summer at the estate and stay in the lodge elsewhere on the grounds. But not long after they arrive, Porter sees the evidence of haunting that the townspeople speak of: a shadowy figure illuminated by the red light of Horace's writing lamp, the very light that shone on the scene of his death. And though he isn't convinced that it is a spirit and not a man, Porter knows that, whichever it is, the figure is responsible for the rash of murders-first of sheep, then of people-that breaks out across the countryside. Somehow, though, the suspect eludes him every time and, in his pursuit, Porter risks implicating himself in the very crimes he hopes to solve.Written with atmospheric prose and tension that rises with every page, The Red Lamp is a hybrid of murder mystery and gothic romance that shows the "American Agatha Christie" at the height of her powers.

Debonaire Philo Vance is often called to help solve particularly difficult cases by his friend District Attorney Markham but the brutal murder of a Broadway vamp has him stumped. Based on the victim of a real-life front-page murder, Margaret Odell-known as the "Canary" because of a part she had played in "an elaborate ornithological ballet in the Follies"-is found strangled in her apartment.The problem is that it would have been impossible for anyone to have gained access to her rooms without being seen by the building's telephone operator, who was in easy and constant sight of her door for the entire night on which she met her end.The police perform a thorough search of her apartment to ensure that no one could have been hiding in her room and that there is no entrance beyond the one under constant surveillance. Vance performs a similar search confirming that the murder seems to be impossible-until he discovers a key clue that unlocks the mystery.S.S. Van Dine, the first important and wildly successful mystery writer to launch the Golden Age of the detective novel in America, has produced a masterpiece with one of the most extraordinary locked room puzzles ever created.

Debonaire Philo Vance is often called to help solve particularly difficult cases by his friend District Attorney Markham but the brutal murder of a Broadway vamp has him stumped. Based on the victim of a real-life front-page murder, Margaret Odell-known as the "Canary" because of a part she had played in "an elaborate ornithological ballet in the Follies"-is found strangled in her apartment.The problem is that it would have been impossible for anyone to have gained access to her rooms without being seen by the building's telephone operator, who was in easy and constant sight of her door for the entire night on which she met her end.The police perform a thorough search of her apartment to ensure that no one could have been hiding in her room and that there is no entrance beyond the one under constant surveillance. Vance performs a similar search confirming that the murder seems to be impossible-until he discovers a key clue that unlocks the mystery.S.S. Van Dine, the first important and wildly successful mystery writer to launch the Golden Age of the detective novel in America, has produced a masterpiece with one of the most extraordinary locked room puzzles ever created.

Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge's wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband has recently received. Eager to avoid the scandal that involving the local police would entail, Lady Elspeth seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector, whose discreet involvement in a case Sir Giles recently presided over greatly impressed her.Meanwhile, Miss Caroline Silvius is disturbed after a recent visit to her brother Victor, convinced that he isn't safe at The Grange. Someone is trying to kill him and she suspects the judge, who has already made Silvius' life a living hell, may be behind it. Caroline hires Inspector George Flint of Scotland Yard to investigate.The two cases collide at Marchbanks, the Drury family seat of over four hundred years, where a series of unnerving events interrupt the peace and quiet of the snowy countryside. A body is discovered in the middle of a frozen pond without any means of getting there and a rifle is fired through a closed window, killing a man but not breaking the glass. Only Spector and his mastery of the art of misdirection can uncover the logical explanations for these impossible crimes.An atmospheric and puzzling traditional mystery that pays homage to the greatest writers of the genre's Golden Age, Cabaret Macabre is the third book in Tom Mead's Joseph Spector series, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "a recipe for pure nostalgic pleasure." The books can be enjoyed in any order.

The Paris conference was supposed to be the biggest moment of investment banker Adam Macias's career, a chance to impress his CEO and rub shoulders with their firm's top investors. Instead, Adam arrives at a glamorous rooftop party in time to see his CEO-and his career-go up in flames when a dangerous conflagration interrupts the event.Now Adam is a suspect in the investigation into the life-threatening arson. After all, he'd used his ID to let a suspicious woman past a security checkpoint and up to the roof just moments before the fire broke out. With the French police circling, Adam finds himself suddenly jobless and the one woman who could provide him with an alibi, his best friend and coworker Jenn, isn't returning his calls.Adam knows that only the mysterious woman from the party can save him but, once he finally finds her, he discovers a whole new world of trouble. There's a deadly and powerful syndicate operating in the shadows of the City of Lights, and now that organization has a target on Adam's back. Lucky for him, his new companion has the instincts of a killer....The exhilarating first novel from filmmaker and James Patterson collaborator Shan Serafin, The Paris Vendetta is a pulse-pounding thrill ride through central Europe's most beautiful cities-Paris and Amsterdam-that exposes the rot beneath their gorgeous facades.

Seven days are all it takes for Rune Sarasin's life to completely derail. It starts with a routine heist: lifting a pouch of rubies from the Bangkok hotel room of wealthy smuggler Charles Lemaire. Rune nearly gets caught when Lemaire's goons give chase, but she manages to escape with her boyfriend Kit. Then Kit delivers some terrifying news: his teenage sister Madee has gone missing. They track her cell phone to the dangerous Khlong Toei slum, but the trail ends there. The night gets even worse when Rune realizes she lost the pouch of gems somewhere in the slum while searching for Madee.Charles Lemaire is the wrong man to mess with. He is a perfectionist when it comes to both his attire and his crimes, and he isn't afraid to kill to get what he wants. When he catches up to Rune and Kit, he gives Rune an ultimatum: return his rubies or she will never see her boyfriend again. Now Rune must race against time to either recover the lost gems or find something even more valuable with which to ransom Kit back from Lemaire. But she also still needs to find out what happened to Madee. As Rune investigates deeper into the shadows of the Khlong Toei slum, she uncovers a web of crime with consequences far more insidious than just one missing girl and a handful of stolen rubies.Hurtling from the back alleys of Bangkok to the glamorous auction houses of New York City, Mailan Doquang's heart-pounding debut will leave readers questioning just how far they would go for the ones they love.

Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag is walking on cloud nine after a meeting with his editor, Norma Fives, where she predicts his new book is sure to establish him as the next great American author. It has been years since he has even dreamed of such success after a crippling case of writer's block limited his literary aspirations to ghostwriting celebrity memoirs. But his happiness is short-lived when at his next meeting with Norma she asks for his help in discovering who is behind a series of increasingly threatening letters sent to her attention.Norma herself is not overly concerned about the letters but her boyfriend, Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very of the NYPD, thinks the threat of violence against Norma should not be so easily dismissed. Very feels the combination of Hoagy's detective skills and knowledge of the underbelly of the publishing world make him the perfect person to investigate the matter. Plus, Hoagy is a friend he can trust to take care of the love of his life. Hoagy agrees if for nothing else than to ease the minds of two people he cares about very much. After all, this is likely to be nothing more than a dramatic gesture from a frustrated writer.But as Hoagy and his trusty basset hound Lulu investigate, the threats move beyond the written word, making it clear that someone out there is determined to write a vicious ending to Norma's life. Could it be the wealthy aging children's author? The unethical snake of a literary agent? Or the handsy historian? This is not the return to the literary world that Hoagy dreamed of, but he is determined to unravel the mystery before the author of these crimes gets the last word.

Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag hasn't written any fiction since his debut novel rocked the literary world of the 1980s and then left him with a paralyzing case of writer's block. Since then, he's been reduced to ghostwriting celebrity memoirs. But his newest project could have him diving back into the world of fiction in a way he never imagined.Nikki Dymtryk is Hollywood's hottest reality TV star, known for her wild party lifestyle and prolific sexual conquests across the music, film, and sports industries. But when the ratings for her show Being Nikki begin to drop, the Dymtryk family engineers a new plan to keep Nikki in the limelight: reinventing the young star as a bestselling author. Nikki's team hires Hoagy to ghostwrite a steamy romance novel showcasing the glitz and glamor of the Hollywood elite.Reluctantly, Hoagy flies out to L.A. with his trusty basset hound Lulu to see what he's gotten himself into with Nikki. But when he finally meets the starlet, she's nothing like the aimless, airhead image she presents to the media. This project may just be the key to getting Hoagy's creative juices flowing again-and staying in L.A. might also give him a chance at getting back together with his actress ex-wife, Merilee. But spending time with Nikki isn't all parties and poolside lounging. As Hoagy gets closer to the young woman, he begins to uncover the Dymtryk family's dark secrets. Secrets that are worth killing for.

Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. was only fourteen when he first became entangled with serial rapist and murderer Dean Corll in 1971. Fellow Houston, Texas, teenager David Brooks had already been ensnared by the charming older man, bribed with cash to help lure boys to Corll's home. When Henley unwittingly entered the trap, Corll evidently sensed he'd be of more use as a second accomplice than another victim. He baited Henley with the same deal he'd given Brooks: $200 for each boy they could bring him.Henley didn't understand the full extent of what he had signed up for at first. But once he started, Corll convinced him that he had crossed the line of no return and had to not only procure boys but help kill them and dispose of the bodies, as well. When Henley first took a life, he lost his moral base. He felt doomed. By the time he was seventeen, he'd helped with multiple murders and believed he'd be killed, too. But on August 8, 1973, he picked up a gun and shot Corll. When he turned himself in, Henley showed police where he and Brooks had buried Corll's victims in mass graves. Twenty-eight bodies were recovered-most of them boys from Henley's neighborhood-making this the worst case of serial murder in America at the time. The case reveals gross failures in the way cops handled parents' pleas to look for their missing sons and how law enforcement possibly protected a larger conspiracy.The Serial Killer's Apprentice tells the story of Corll and his accomplices in its fullest form to date. It also explores the concept of "mur-dar" (the predator's instinct for exploitable kids), current neuroscience about adolescent brain vulnerabilities, the role of compartmentalization, the dynamic of a murder apprenticeship, and how tales like Henley's can aid with early intervention. Despite his youth and cooperation, Henley went to trial and received six life sentences. He's now sixty-five and has a sense of perspective about how adult predators can turn formerly good kids into criminals. Unexpectedly, he's willing to talk. This book is his warning and the story of the unspeakable evil and sorrow that befell Houston in the early 1970s.

Jack Taylor wakes up from a coma to discover that much of the world has changed since he last walked the streets of Galway. The pandemic had hit while he was under, devastating the lives of many in his beloved city and beyond. Now, as Jack tries to recover from the attack that put him in the hospital and absorb the incredible changes in the world around him, a woman approaches him with a distressing case: two local nuns have been bludgeoned by a mysterious man wielding a hammer, and more are sure to follow. As the police fail to act while the violence against the Sisters escalates, Jack seems like their only hope.Initially wary of becoming involved in the investigation, Jack finds he cannot stay away from the mystery surrounding these vicious attacks. He also cannot shake a feeling of darkness that has haunted him since he awoke from his coma-a darkness that is far too close for comfort. Luckily an old friend is there to help see him through and there is always Jack's dark wit and a drink to help shore up his mood.

The police force of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania, doesn't see a ton of action. With jobs and industry moving away from the small city outside Pittsburgh, Detective Ruggiero "Rugs" Carlucci's greatest adversaries are his negligent vacation-prone fellow officers and an older divorcee who has a habit of dancing naked on her back porch when she stops taking her medication. Retirement is on the horizon for Rugs, and the Vietnam vet is counting the days until he can move on from the job.But Rocksburg isn't going to let Rugs drift off to retirement without a fight. Before he can neatly wrap up his career, Rugs will face a mad shooter, a vengeful city councilman, and, most perilously, his own mother.With a supporting cast of characters painted through uproarious profanity and heart-wrenching confessions, Another Day's Pain is a bold and darkly funny novel about crime and the damaged souls it leaves behind.