Anthologies

Climb on board the Orion express with Ian Rankin, Ed McBain, Peter Straub, H.R.F. Keating, Peter Lovesey and many more for what promises to be the perfect journey in search of the perfect crime ... Fifteen men and women out for justice. Deception, betrayal, greed, revenge, hate and psychosis: fifteen motives, fifteen brand new novellas from writers at the cutting edge of contemporary crime fiction. In Criminal Records, editor Otto Penzler offers you the chance to catch up on some old friends - and meet several new ones. Whether you’re taking driving lessons with Ed McBain, assisting Rankin’s Inspector Rebus in his search for a missing person, listening to a jazz musician’s haunting story with Peter Straub, or solving the mystery of the murder of an English headmaster in the hills above Bombay with H.R.F. Keating’s Inspector Ghote, you're already an accessory. Turn the pages and you're an accomplice. This more than generous helping of original crime stories will satisfy every kind of criminal appetite.

Otto Penzler's annual collection of cutting-edge crime writing from established names and total newcomers, featuring a different guest editor every year. Here the best-selling author of LA CONFIDENTIAL, James Ellroy, presents his picks for the finest mystery writing in America today..THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction in the genre, and this is the third volume to be published in the UK. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognised as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the BEST AMERICAN series the most respected - and most popular - of its kind. THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 3 will thrill fans from all reaches of the genre. This year, bestselling and acclaimed author James Ellroy lends his talent to the series, offering pieces from the likes of Robert B. Parker, Joyce Carol Oates and Michael Connelly.

"[Most of] these stories are portraits, in styles ranging from sly to harrowing, of how crimes occurred ... If you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you." -- from the introduction by Scott Turow Best-selling author Scott Turow takes the helm for the tenth edition of this annual, featuring twenty-one of the past year's most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense. Elmore Leonard tells the tale of a young woman who's fled home with a convicted bank robber. Walter Mosley describes an over-the-hill private detective and his new client, a woman named Karma. C. J. Box explores the fate of two Czech immigrants stranded by the side of the road in Yellowstone Park. Ed McBain begins his story on role-playing with the line "'Why don't we kill somebody?' she suggested." Wendy Hornsby tells of a wild motorcycle chase through the canyons outside Las Vegas. Laura Lippman describes the "Crack Cocaine Diet." And James Lee Burke writes of a young boy who may have been a close friend of Bugsy Siegel. As Scott Turow notes in his introduction, these stories are "about crime -- its commission, its aftermath, its anxieties, its effect on character." The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 is a powerful collection for all readers who enjoy fiction that deals with the extremes of human passion and its dark consequences.

"I drove all the way across town to cut up this son of a bitch, but it's these three flights of stairs that got me worried. . ." It's meaner than a puppy juggler. It's sharper than the knife that hot babe is aiming at your back. It's got you so hard 'n bothered you don't see bad news coming. It's the best of contemporary neo-noir suspense fiction, raw and uncut from the net's most hardcore, award-winning site. . . "The unhinged depravity of your standard street freak is a very difficult thing to predict. . ." So snap the neck off your favorite brew, find a comfortable barstool, and dig. . .the lesbian-in-fishnets on a killing spree. The cop who breaks more laws than he defends. A pit-fight champion who's drugged-up, revved-up and way less-than-human. Mobsters whose mercy is worse than their payback. The restless ghosts of Johnny Cash and Ol' Blue Eyes haunting the streets. And the "pubic-ly-challenged" dream woman who's happy to deliver the ultimate final cut. . . "In this game, every move is a risk. Everything you do has repercussions. . ." Step up to a meth-fueled, E-ticket ride through the wild side, where no deed goes unpunished, no heart is true. . .and evil is the only thing that's pure. . . Hardcore Hardboiled "You have to look hard to find two consecutive pages that don't deal with sex or violence, but why would you want to? If you're man enough, you'll love this book. If you're not, give it to your girlfriend. If she accepts it and enjoys it, never turn your back on her." --Otto Penzler Big Daddy Thug/Todd Robinson's writing has appeared in Danger City, Demolition, Out Of The Gutter, Pulp Pusher, Crimespree and Writers Digest's The Years Best Writing 2003. He is the creator and chief editor of Thuglit.com. The stories he's edited for Thuglit.com have been nominated for several awards, including The Derringer (presented by the Short Mystery Fiction Society) and The Million Writer's Award, and been have been selected for Best American Mystery Stories and Best Noir 2006. He lives and works in New York with his wife (Lady Detroit), a ferret named Matilda and three freakin' cats.