The Mighty Johns and Other Stories » (Unabridged)

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.

This book of football stories, including one about rugby, Europe's football, includes the mastery of David Baldacci in the lead story, The Mighty Johns. Football in college includes mystery and a long ago disappearance of the ultimate star of the Draven University football team. Tor North, brilliant science student and football player looks for the answers and the result is very close to home.

Additionally, Super Bowl Sunday and its importance to the teams and the fans enters several of our stories - including A SUNDAY IN JANUARY and NO THING. More college ball is the theme when college rivalries are at stake. MIT and Harvard have a rivalry, and when Harvard plays Yale, MIT wants the glory. What they do to top last year's prank is worth the read.

The naughty boys of football are the topics of THE EHRENGRAF REVERSE, THE ARCANE RECEIVER, HOLLYWOOD SPRING AND AXLE, GONE TO THE DAWGS AND RUMORS OF GRAVITY. Murder, theft, gunshots, larceny, drugs and more bad behavior are the best of football mystery.

GOOD SEATS, GONE DOWN TO CORPUS, WHATEVER IT TAKES TO WIN and SEMI-PRO are darker revenge stories of getting even at any cost. The people, the players, and football are merged into human ego and animal cunning.

Finally, THE END OF INNOCENCE by Anne Perry, recalls the days just before WWI and a rugby match between friends and acquaintances before the troops head off to war. The end of an era, the end of relationships and the adjustment of friendships come together in this tale of family pride and protection.

Otto Penzler the mastery mystery collector, has brought these stories together to pay homage to the most frenetic and inspiring game of America. The Mighty Johns and Other Stories is a superstar collection from the smartest mystery editor of them all.

Mystery Writers and their stories:

• The Ehrengraf Reverse by Lawrence Block
• Semi-Pro by James Crumley
• A Sunday in January by Brenda DuBois
• Whatever it Takes to Win by Tim Green
• Good Seats by Colin Harrison
• Gone Down to Corpus by Dennis Lehane
• No Thing by Mike Lupica
• The Empire Strikes Back by Brad Meltzer
• The Arcane Receiver by Carol O'Connell
• The End of Innocence by Anne Perry
• Hollywood Spring and Axle by Gary Phillips
• Gone to the Dawgs by Peter Robinson
• Rumors of Gravity by John Westermann

Publishers Weekly

The extraordinary novella by thriller king David Baldacci that leads off this exceptional anthology of new fiction centered on crime and football is alone worth the book's cover price. "The Mighty Johns" is one of the more remarkable stories ever written on a sports theme, boasting an array of original plot spins infusing quantum physics (e.g., Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the possibility of time warp) into this tale of a college football player's investigation into the disappearance of another college pigskin star decades earlier. Every Baldacci fan will want to read "The Mighty Johns," and they'll be joined by legions of others, because veteran editor Penzler has put together a team of authors that's simply all-star. Colin Harrison and Dennis Lehane contribute "Good Seats" and "Gone Down to Corpus," respectively, the former a fluid if hard-bitten tale of vengeance, the latter a powerfully moody tale of alienated youth (varsity players). There's a superb offering from Anne Perry, "The End of Innocence," set in a small English village on the eve of WWI. This story imagines a rugby match (fairly chosen as the English counterpart to American football) as a backdrop to murder, delivering an indelible evocation of a peaceful corner of the world shadowed by war. Legendary PI writer James Crumley tells a mordant tale of a former player, now a loser, who turns to bank robbery, in "Semi-Pro," while another mystery great, Lawrence Block, turns in the nicely black-humored "The Ehrengraf Reverse." Bestselling authors Brad Meltzer (with the clever, MIT-set "The Empire Strikes Back") and Tim Green also take the field, the former pro baller with "Whatever It Takes to Win," with tough-minded PI (former player) action that's perhaps Green's most accomplished writing yet. Mike Lupica, Brendan DuBois, John Westermann, Peter Robinson, Carol O'Connell and Gary Phillips round out the players in the most exciting sports fiction anthology in years. (June) Forecast: New Millennium should score a touchdown on bestseller lists with this dazzling anthology, which will appeal not only to the authors' myriad fans but also to literate football lovers. The publisher is backing the volume with a $200,000 ad/promo campaign. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.