Golden Age Masters of Mystery

Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler selects stories that highlight the greatest American authors of the Golden Age mystery.

The American Mystery Classics series was founded in 2018 with the goal of reissuing the very best detective novels from the genre’s Golden Age (loosely, the years between the two World Wars). For the 100th title in the series, Otto Penzler has compiled an anthology that features the greatest authors in the series to date, including such names as Ellery Queen, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Cornell Woolrich, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, and many more.

These tales will puzzle and delight, promising hours of enjoyment for mystery lovers of all stripes. Some, like Clayton Rawson’s “Nothing Is Impossible” or Mignon G. Eberhart’s “Introducing Susan Dare,” feature familiar series sleuths; others, like Stanley Ellin’s “Cat’s Paw” and “Meredith’s Murder” by Charlotte Armstrong, are intriguing standalones.

Whether you’re new to the AMC series or a long-time fan, you won’t want to miss Golden Age Masters of Mystery and its outstanding selection of stories.

You simply can’t go wrong with any anthology that has [Otto Penzler’s] name on it.”
―Parade Magazine

Penzler’s depth of knowledge of the genre is in full evidence in this volume . . . This anthology is sure to contain something to surprise even the most diehard mystery fan.”
―Toronto Star on Golden Age Whodunits

Otto Penzler, the creator of American Mystery Classics, is also the founder of the Mysterious Press (1975); Mysterious Press.com (2011), an electronic-book publishing company; and New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop (1979). He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from Noircon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 80 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.

See more titles by Otto Penzler