Murder Is My Racquet » (First Trade Edition)

Otto Penzler is the proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. He was publisher of The Armchair Detective, the founder of the Mysterious Press and the Armchair Detective Library, and created the publishing firm Otto Penzler Books. He is a recipient of an Edgar Award for The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection and the Ellery Queen Award by the Mystery Writers of America for his many contributions to the field. He is the editor of The Vampire Archives and The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, which was a New York Times bestseller.

Tennis is a sport for champions. Years of practice, the right attire, the best racquet, shoes, and coach make for the best players. And, the best players make all the money and get all the promotional contracts and sponsorships. Only a few are good enough, and in these stories, it's a fight to the finish. Authors like Ridley Pearson and Lawrence Block bring you murder on and off the court. With stakes so high, the sport is on.

Otto Penzler is the dean of mysteries, owning the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, one of the world's largest mystery specialty stores. He published the Armchair Detective, the Edgar-winning mystery journal devoted to the study of mystery and suspense fiction for over 17 years. He is the editor of New Millennium's other highly acclaimed sports anthology titles Murderers' Row (baseball mysteries) and Murder on the Ropes (boxing mysteries).

Publishers Weekly

Mystery maven Penzler's latest all-original sports anthology offers 14 mostly high-quality tales of the underside of lawn tennis, the traditional game of sometimes not so gentle men (and women). There's something to suit every taste, from the short and light (Daniel Stashower's "A Peach of a Shot" and Kinky Friedman's "Tennis, Anyone?") to grittier psychological stories (John Harvey's "Promise" and Robert Leuci's "A Killer Overhead"). In Lisa Scottoline's amusing "Love Match," the tennis-playing protagonist is just plain lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Set in the South in 1948, Stephen Hunter's gripping "Stephen Longacre's Greatest Match" provides a lesson in race relations when a young white man, a ne'er-do-well from a wealthy family, tries to redeem himself by taking on a poor black man as his doubles partner. Notable chiefly for its closing pun is David Morrell's "Continental Grip," about the baffling murder of a Sante Fe, N.Mex., tennis pro. Other top-rank contributors include Lawrence Block, James W. Hall, Peter Lovesey and Judith Kelman. This tome is the perfect companion to have in the bag for those rain delays at Wimbledon. Agent, Nat Sobel. (June 2) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.