Savor the delights in this fine collection, a must for every home library, in which multi-award winning mystery connoisseur Otto Penzler presents the fifty most exquisite tales of mystery and suspense from fifty master writers.

50 Greatest opens with the first genuine detective story, Edgar Allan Poe's The Purloined Letter, and climbs to chilling heights with Wilkie Collins' notorious A Terribly Strange Bed, Aldous Huxley's unique The Gioconda Smile, Ring Lardner's humorous and bleak Haircut, and Stephen King's dark fantasy Quitters, Inc., among others. These are tales told with unmatched skill by James Ellroy, John Gardner, Patricia Highsmith, Edith Wharton, O. Henry, Georges Simenon, James Thurber, Ernest Hemingway, Stanely Ellin, Sara Paretsky, Lawrence Block, and Harlan Ellison. Finally, staying true to the progressive modernity of this story collection, The 50 Greatest Mysteries of All Time closes with Elmore Leonard's very contemporary tale, Karen Makes Out.

Whether you are a passionate mystery lover or a devotee in the making, you will find much to entertain, surprise, and challenge you.

Contents:

• The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
• A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins
• The Three Strangers by Thomas Hardy
• The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Corpus Delicti by Melville Davisson Post
• Gentlemen and Players by E.W. Hornung
• A Journey by Edith Wharton
• The Leopard Man’s Story by Jack London
• A Retrieved Reformation by O. Henry
• The Problem of Cell 13 by Jacques Futrelle
• The Absent-Minded Coterie by Robert Barr
• The Invisible Man by G.K. Chesterton
• The Infallible Godahl by Frederick Irving Anderson
• The Adventure of the Unique “Hamlet” by Vincent Starrett
• The Gioconda Smile by Aldous Huxley
• Haircut by Ring Lardner
• The Killers by Ernest Hemingway
• The Hands of Mr. Ottermole by Thomas Burke
• The Little House at Croix-Rousse by Georges Simenon
• The Case of the Missing Patriarchs by Logan Clendening, M.D.
• Clerical Error (“Foot in It”) by James Gould Cozzens
• Two Bottles of Relish by Lord Dunsany
• The Chaser by John Collier
• The Perfect Crime by Ben Ray Redman
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch
• The Blind Spot by Barry Perowne
• The Catbird Seat by James Thurber
• Recipe for Murder by C.P. Donnel, Jr.
• The Nine Mile Walk by Harry Kemelman
• Kill or Be Killed (“The Other Mind Reader”) by Ogden Nash
• The Specialty of the House by Stanley Ellin
• Nearly Perfect by A.A. Milne
• The Gettysburg Bugle (“As Simple as ABC”) by Ellery Queen
• The Last Spin by Evan Hunter
• Stand Up and Die! by Mickey Spillane
• A New Leaf by Jack Ritchie
• The Snail-Watcher by Patricia Highsmith
• The Long Way Down by Edward D. Hoch
• The Man Who Never Told a Lie by Isaac Asimov
• I Have by John Gardner
• Quitters, Inc. by Stephen King
• Horn Man by Clark Howard
• The New Girl Friend by Ruth Rendell
• By the Dawn’s Early Light by Lawrence Block
• Iris by Stephen Greenleaf
• High Darktown by James Ellroy
• The Case of the Pietro Andromache by Sara Paretsky
• Soft Monkey by Harlan Ellison
• The Hand of Carlos by Charles McCarry
• Karen Makes Out by Elmore Leonard