The Mysterious Otto Penzler

Otto Penzler

Publisher of Mysterious Press and owner of The Mysterious Bookshop

Otto Penzler, founder of The Mysterious Bookshop and Mysterious Press, is widely considered to be the father of crime fiction in the US, bringing critical and popular appreciation of the genre to the forefront.

INTERVIEWED ON: October 2nd, 2024

Books discussed:

The Big Sleep

A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

The Talented Mr Ripley

Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Tom Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.

A Study in Scarlet

Shot in the shoulder and brought to death’s door by typhoid fever, Dr. John Watson is sent home from the second Afghan war with a small income and nothing to do but recover his health. By his own account, he leads a meaningless existence in London until a chance encounter with an old friend brings news of comfortable lodgings on Baker Street. In a hospital laboratory, Watson meets his potential new roommate for the first time. “How are you?” asks Mr. Sherlock Holmes. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The eminent Belgian detective Hercule Poirot has lost a friend to an unfortunate stabbing incident, and now, despite his retirement in a previously peaceful English village, he must return to work and find out who killed Roger Ackroyd—and how his demise may be connected to the dark secrets and tragic events surrounding Ackroyd’s late fiancée, who died only the day before . . .