The Big Book of Rogues and Villains

by Otto Penzler Narrated by Shaun Grindell, George Spelvin

Overview

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler's new anthology brings together the most cunning, ruthless, and brilliant criminals in mystery fiction, for the biggest compendium of bad guys (and girls) ever assembled.



The best mysteries have one thing in common: a memorable perpetrator. For every Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade in noble pursuit, there's a Count Dracula, a Lester Leith, or a Jimmy Valentine. These are the rogues and villains who haunt our imaginations-and who often have more in common with their heroic counterparts than we might expect. Now, for the first time ever, Otto Penzler gathers the iconic traitors, thieves, con men, sociopaths, and killers who have crept through the mystery canon over the past 150 years, captivating and horrifying readers in equal measure. The handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the most depraved of psyches, from iconic antiheroes like Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin and Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu to contemporary delinquents like Lawrence Block's Ehrengraf and Donald Westlake's Dortmunder, and include unforgettable tales by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, Jack London, H. G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis, O. Henry, Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charteris, Erle Stanley Gardner, Edward D. Hoch, Max Allan Collins, Loren D. Estleman, and many more.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 08/28/2017
Edgar-winner Penzler’s entertaining and wide-ranging seventh Big Book (after 2016’s The Big Book of Jack the Ripper) offers 72 stories featuring out-and-out bad guys, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and others whose morality is more ambiguous, such as Leslie Charteris’s the Saint. In addition to the many expected names (Donald Westlake, Edgar Wallace, Cornell Woolrich), Penzler resurrects such now-obscure writers as Everett Rhodes Castle, May Edginton, and George Randolph Chester. Chester weighs in with perhaps the most intriguing title, “The Universal Covered Carpet Tack Company,” which centers on a clever and elaborate stock swindle. Bertram Atkey’s gifted pickpocket “Smiler” Bunn demonstrates his “celebrated imitation of a gentleman pinching a blood-orange” at the start of “The Adventure of ‘The Brain.’” Like many entries, this tale boasts a killer opening line. Another example is H.G. Wells’s “The Hammerpond Park Burglary” (“It is a moot point whether burglary is to be considered as a sport, a trade, or an art”). The fruits of Penzler’s decades of diligent study of the genre pay off handsomely in this fat volume. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

"Penzler takes what is arguably the best part of crime and mystery novels—the villains—and packs them into an encyclopedic anthology that manages to cover both Dracula and Dr. Fu Manchu. To be read through a monocle and with a sinister sneer." —The New York Times Book Review

"Rogues and Villains is a treasure chest of delightful discoveries." —The Seattle Times

"The Big Book of Rogues and Villains is stalked by a cast of the deviant crooks, creeps, criminals and con men." —Los Angeles Times

Kirkus Reviews

2017-08-08
Black Lizard's latest plus-size anthology, reprinting 72 stories, practically all of them published in the U.S. and U.K. over the past two centuries, is a monument to bad behavior.With obvious exceptions like Hannibal Lecter and Count Dracula, fictional criminals have rarely attracted the same attention as fictional detectives because they've rarely had the same staying power. Even so, veteran anthologist Penzler (Bibliomysteries, 2017, etc.) has assembled a lineup of franchise luminaries likely to quicken the pulse of many a genre fan: Grant Allen's Colonel Clay, E.W. Hornung's A.J. Raffles, Thomas W. Hanshew's Hamilton Cleek, Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, Clifford Ashdown's Romney Pringle, K. and Hesketh Prichard's Don Q, Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu, Frederick Irving Anderson's The Infallible Godahl and Sophie Lang, O. Henry's Jeff Peters and Andy Tucker, Jack Boyle's Boston Blackie, Gerald Kersh's Karmesian, Edgar Wallace's Four Square Jane, Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar, Erle Stanley Gardner's Ed Jenkins, Lester Leith, Paul Pry, and the Patent Leather Kid, Edward D. Hoch's Nick Velvet, Robert L. Fish's Kek Huuygens, Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr, Martin Ehrengraf, and John Keller, Max Allan Collins' Quarry, Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder, and of course Dracula. The most notable omission, mentioned in Penzler's brief Introduction but unaccountably absent from the table of contents, is Melville Davisson Post's crooked lawyer, Randolph Mason. Although these franchise entries are naturally of varying quality, many of them mark their villains' (or their rogues'—Penzler's conscientious attempt to categorize every single one of these nefarious leads as either one or the other or both seems a pointless exercise) first appearances, giving this collection an added historical interest. Newcomers may want to begin with the most celebrated nonfranchise tales: Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Body Snatcher," Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," Thomas Burke's "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole," Ben Hecht's "The Fifteen Murderers," and William Irish's "After-Dinner Story." Old hands may note that bad guys can make just as big a splash in a short story as in a long one: the lengthiest item here, Donald E. Keyhoe's pulp novella The Mystery of the Golden Skull, packs no greater punch than the oldest story of all, one of the shortest, and one of the most shockingly unexpected from its source, Washington Irving's "The Story of a Young Robber." Weighing in at a svelte 928 pages, Penzler's omnibus is equally impossible to pick up and put down.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173714312
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Series:	Big Book
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION
           
Mystery fiction encompasses a broad spectrum of sub-genres, although it is common for casual aficionados to focus on the detective story as the only “true” mystery. As I have often defined it, and, quite naturally, I regard it as a good and fair definition, a mystery is any work of prose fiction in which a crime or the threat of a crime is central to the theme or plot.
            On a football field, the pure detective story may go from the end zone to the twenty-five yard line. The crime story, in which the central figure is a criminal of some kind, whether rogue or villain (and I’ll get to that shortly), may move the ball another twenty yards. The novel of suspense, which includes women or children in jeopardy, the everyday gone wrong, as well as tales of psychological unease and irrational behavior, whether of sociopathy or fear, will produce a long gain well past midfield, and espionage/international intrigue, will cross the goal-line. The killing of a large number of people is, of course, part of the same horrific game as the killing of an individual.
            There are numerous sub-sub genres (historical mysteries, police procedurals, comedies, etc.) but they fall within the prime sub-genres, many of which also overlap: all forms may (one might say should) create suspense, spies may work as detectives to catch moles, psychopaths tend to be criminals, and their actions may well create suspense and a detective is probably hunting them, so the lines blur.
            The preponderance of anthologies published in the nearly century-and-a-quarter since the first legitimate mystery anthology, the anonymously edited The Long Arm and Other Detective Tales was released in 1895, have featured detectives as the central characters. This collection has reversed that common practice to focus on criminals. The title, The Big Book of Rogues and Villains, very specifically divides the protagonists into two groups, mostly quite different from each other, although those lines also blur from time to time.
            Roguery must be distinguished from villainy. The latter is the creature of evil and malice, if not of outright pathology. It is bad behavior carried to an unpleasant extreme—generally murder. The former tends not to be vicious, prefers no serious physical injury to others, and defines itself as rascality soaked in humor or explained as the result of an unfortunate social environment. Again, the lines may blur from time to time, as a rogue may cause severe hardship or fear in others, while the villain may have a tender heart for a dog or a child, even if he has murdered someone.
            While we may normally be easily able to perceive the distinction between roguery and villainy, the contrast may hinge less upon the venality or atrocity of the deed perpetrated than upon the character’s and the author’s point of view.
            The typical crime of the rogue is theft, whether by burglary, swindling, forgery, blackmail, or other physically non-violent transgressions. If his escapades lead to serious physical violence, that action will generally end his career as a rascal and places him into the category of villain. Most rogues prefer to win by guile or dexterity that which others have earned by labor or inherited. He may create a phony business with worthless stock, forge a will or a check, cheat at cards, scheme for marriage to an heiress, crack a safe in the dark of night, or replace a genuine Old Master with a fake. History and literature have shown there is no end to the nefarious schemes of which the amoral mind is incapable of devising.
            The typical crime of the villain is murder, for which there is seldom an acceptable excuse. Although one of the protagonists in this book excuses his action by saying, “He needed killing,” not everyone would agree. Still, there are myriad reasons that not only excuse killing but applaud it. Not all killing, it may be said, is murder. Self-defense is the easiest to justify, and there are two sides vehemently opposed to other examples of taking a human life. The most frequently posited is: “Given the chance to go back in time, would you kill (pick your real villain—Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin—it’s a long list) given the opportunity?” And would it make you a villain if you did?
            I’m in danger of asking next how many angels could dance around the head of a pin, while this large gathering of fictional rogues and villains is designed merely to give pleasure. It’s a giant shelf-filler of what was once known as escapist fiction before the term fell into disfavor. Is any fiction not escapist?
            It is thoughtfully but impossibly divided into sections, though as I compiled the Table of Contents I realized that there are many stories that easily could fall into more than one category, so please don’t take the divisions too seriously.
            The heyday of the gentleman thief was the end of the Victorian era and the Edwardian era, and many of the stories have a similarity that’s hard to avoid with a book of this kind. The crooks often have good standing in the community and they dress well. It’s a game to them, even if a dangerous one, and they carry off their roles with insouciance and verve. Many of them are brilliant and have nerves of steel. They are seemingly infallible, rarely getting caught but, if they do, they always find a way out through their wit, a bogus alibi, or a flummoxed witness.
            As a grammatical aside, I’ve been using the pronoun “he” because “they” is just flat-out wrong and “he or she” is cumbersome, so no offense to anybody. But women have their roles here, too, and you will undoubtedly find them as charming as their “gangs” do. You will find Fidelity Dove and Four Square Jane very similar, but there was never a thought of omitting either. Almost all the female rogues (and villains) are young and beautiful—all the better to fool their victims as well as the police.
            Other similarities of style and performance occur in the stories about the morally-challenged lawyers Randolph Mason and Ehrengraf, the adventures of hit men Quarry and Keller, the modus operandi of con men Wallingford and Colonel Clay, the conscienceless actions of “Yellow Peril” monsters Quong Lung and Fu Manchu, and the rogues of Erle Stanley Gardner. Then again, there are not many differences between the methods of such iconic detectives as Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Lew Archer. What matters is how creatively and beautifully the authors tell the stories.
            The genre has its rules and restrictions, just as symphonies and sonnets have theirs. One raspberry has its similarities to another, but the point is not to seek a major variation, merely to enjoy it. I hope you enjoy these stories and their variations.
            And remember: Crime may pay in fiction but it’s not a good choice in real life. Sherlock Holmes is still alive and will catch you!
—Otto Penzler

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