Books by Bill Pronzini
The Alias Man
The women in his life call him the Alias Man. From Santa Fe to Pennsylvania, from Vancouver to San Francisco, he has seduced and charmed, stolen and disappeared, leaving unbearable hurt in his wake. Then his three most recent victims-- Jessie, Sarah, and Morgan-- find one another and collectively discover his involvement in an even more profitable and deadly scheme. As they work together to carry out their hunger for justice, each is forced to confront and overcome yet another enemy: her own fears and weaknesses.
In The Alias Man, internationally-acclaimed, award-winning crime writer Bill Pronzini offers a psychological thriller filled with the hallmark twists, turns, and surprises of his wicked imagination.
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Hard-boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories
What are the ingredients of a hard-boiled detective story? "Savagery, style, sophistication, sleuthing and sex," said Ellery Queen. Often a desperate blond, a jealous husband, and, of course, a tough-but-tender P.I. the likes of Sam Spade or Philop Marlowe. Perhaps Raymond Chandler summed it up best in his description of Dashiell Hammett's style: "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it....He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes."
Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories is the largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind, with over half of the stories never published before in book form. Included are thirty-six sublimely suspenseful stories that chronicle the evolutiuon of this quintessentially American art form, from its earliest beginnings during the Golden Age of the legendary pulp magazine Black Mask in the 1920s, to the arrival of the tough digest Manhunt in the 1950s, and finally leading up to present-day hard-boiled stories by such writers as James Ellroy. Here are eight decades worth of the best writing about betrayal, murder, and mayhem: from Hammett's 1925 tour de force "The Scorched Face," in which the disappearance of two sisters leads Hammett's never-named detective, the Continental Op, straight into a web of sexual blackmail amidst the West Coast elite, to Ed Gorman's 1992 "The Long Silence After," a gripping and powerful rendezvous involving a middle class insurance executive, a Chicago streetwalker, and a loaded .38. Other delectable contributions include "Brush Fire" by James M. Cain, author of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raymond Chandler's "I'll Be Waiting," where, for once, the femme fatale is not blond but a redhead, a Ross Macdonald mystery starring Macdonald's most famous creation, the cryptic Lew Archer, and "The Screen Test of Mike Hammer" by the one and only Micky Spillane. The hard-boiled cult has more in common with the legendary lawmen of the Wild West than with the gentleman and lady sleuths of traditional drawing room mysteries, and this direct line of descent is on brilliant display in two of the most subtle and tautly written stories in the collection, Elmore Leonard's "3:10 to Yuma" and John D. MacDonald's "Nor Iron Bars." Other contributors include Evan Hunter (better known as Ed McBain), Jim Thompson, Helen Nielsen, Margaret Maron, Andrew Vachss, Faye Kellerman, and Lawrence Block.
Compellingly and compulsively readable, Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories is a page-turner no mystery lover will want to be without. Containing many notable rarities, it celebrates a genre that has profoundly shaped not only American literature and film, but how we see our heroes and oursleves.
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Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel ("Nameless" Detective Novels)
EVERYONE IS MOURNING SOMETHING
Nameless has seen enough death in his years; spending his time watching someone drive to several funerals a day, funerals for people Nameless doesn't even know, is more than he can take.
Then the bits and pieces begin to fall into place: The funerals James Troxell is attending are all for women who died violently. Is he the killer? One woman thinks so--she insists Troxell is the one who murdered her sister.
But there are too many deaths, too many roads leading nowhere, too many crimes and secrets and fears. This might be the one case that breaks Nameless--but the mourning has to stop, so Nameless will have to see it through…
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The Other Side of Silence: A Novel of Suspense
A scintillating new thriller by one of the masters of the genre, following his Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
"When Geena finally left him and filed for divorce, Fallon put the Encino house up for sale and took the last two weeks of his vacation from Unidyne. Then he loaded the Jeep Liberty and drove straight to Death Valley. The desert country had a way of simplifying things. It cleansed your mind, allowed you to think clearly. Allowed you to breathe. The one place he truly belonged."
So opens Bill Pronzini's exciting new thriller. On his third day in the Valley, Rick Fallon comes upon a deserted Toyota Camry, and soon thereafter, the almost-dead body of Casey Dunbar. Having rescued her, Fallon soon learns what had driven her to give up on life…and, his own life on hold, he resolves to unravel the twisted and dangerous strands of hers, a quest that leads him to the glitter-dome of Las Vegas among other locales. The result is a story as dramatic and memorable as anything Pronzini has written, reminiscent of his classics Blue Lonesome and A Wasteland of Strangers. In The Other Side of Silence, Bill Pronzini is indeed a Grand Master.
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Deadly Anniversaries: A Collection of Stories from Crime Fiction's Top Authors (Mystery Writers of America Series, 1)
by Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini
A Best Book of 2020 from Suspense Magazine
Deadly Anniversaries celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Mystery Writers of America with a collection of stories from some of the top names in crime fiction.
An anniversary can honor many things: a birth, a wedding and sometimes even a death. In Deadly Anniversaries, editors Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini present new stories from some of the best contemporary authors to honor the diamond jubilee of the Mystery Writers of America, an organization founded on the principle that “Crime Doesn’t Pay—Enough.”
Each author puts their own unique spin on what it means to recognize a certain day or event each year. These nineteen stories travel across a wide range of historical and contemporary settings and remind readers of how broad the mystery writing tradition can be, encompassing detective tales, domestic intrigue, psychological suspense, black humor and thrilling action.
By the time this group of bestsellers and award-winners is through, none of us will ever look at anniversaries the same way again. Deadly Anniversaries is sure to shock, scare and delight mystery and suspense fans of all kinds, featuring the following contributors:
Sue Grafton
Laurie R. King
Lee Child
Margaret Maron
S.J. Rozan
Max Allan Collins
Wendy Hornsby
Jeffery Deaver
Bill Pronzini
Carolyn Hart
Peter Lovesey
Meg Gardiner
Marcia Muller
Julie Smith
William Kent Krueger
Peter Robinson
Naomi Hirahara
Doug Allyn
Alison Gaylin
Laura Lippman
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The Violated: A Novel
A new stand-alone thriller by an acclaimed master of the genre and author of the Nameless Detective series.
Bill Pronzini is crime-writing royalty. His more than eighty published novels have won or been nominated for Edgar, Hammett, Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity awards--a clean sweep of the crime fiction award field--and received rave reviews from critics. He crafts masterful stories, often from multiple perspectives, in which the human condition is on full display.
The Violated is no exception. In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has no easy solution. Pronzini cleverly unfolds the case through alternating perspectives--Martin Torrey's wife, caught between her grief and the fear her husband was guilty; the outraged husbands of the women violated; the enterprising editor of the local paper; the mayor concerned most with his own ratings; the detectives, often spinning in circles--until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion. The Violated is Bill Pronzini at the height of his storytelling powers.
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Endgame: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels, 46)
The Nameless Detective has taken many cases over the years… and this is one for the books.
Or rather, two cases that will test his agency's resources. Love is in the air...more to the point, love gone awry. One case involves a woman whose husband died accidentally in a remote cabin in the Sierras. The wife isn’t buying that her husband was alone, and is determined to find out his secret and get closure…in spite of any potential heartbreak.
The other case is a missing person . . . but the person missing was agoraphobic and never left the house. The husband swears that while their relationship was strained due to his wife’s condition, he was still in love with her. He begs Nameless to clear him and find his wife before the cops come for him.
Bill Pronzini's Endgame is a classic Nameless tale―twisty puzzles featuring one of mystery’s best loved detectives.
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Black is the Night Stories inspired by Cornell Woolrich
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Maxim Jakubowski, James Sallis, Bill Pronzini, Joe R. Lansdale, James Grady, David Quantick, Charles Ardai, Kim Newman, Donna Moore, Brandon Barrows, A.K. Benedict, Joseph S. Walker, Ana Teresa Pereira, Joel Lane
A gritty and thrilling anthology of 30 new short stories in tribute to pulp noir master, Cornell Woolrich, author of 'Rear Window' that inspired Alfred Hitchock's classic film.
Featuring Kim Newman, James Sallis, A.K. Benedict, USA Today-bestseller Samantha Lee Howe, Joe R. Lansdale and many more.
This anthology of exclusive new short stories offers tribute to the master of the pulp era – Cornell Woolrich, who stands with Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and Dashiell Hammett as a legend in the genre.
Enter a world of vengeful brides and black widows, where cold-blooded killers watch from every window and every sin shall be paid for, no matter how deep you bury them. See the chilling fate of a young woman, and the darkness in every family, in Joe R. Lansdale’s “Missing Sister”, the cold, calculating mind of an ambitious wife and her cheating husband in Samantha Lee Howe’s “Trophy Wife”, a reunion dinner ripped apart by conspiracies and violence in Susi Holliday’s “The Invitation”, and the tight-knit family of a New York dive bar explode into violence in William Boyle’s “New York Blues Redux”.
Hope that the long, dark night will keep your sins and secrets.
FEATURING
CHARLES ARDAI
BRANDON BARROWS
A. K. BENEDICT
WILLIAM BOYLE
M. W. CRAVEN
MASON CROSS
MAX DÉCHARNÉ
O’NEIL DE NOUX
MARTIN EDWARDS
PAUL DI FILIPPO
JAMES GRADY
SUSI HOLLIDAY
SAMANTHA LEE HOWE
MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI
VASEEM KHAN
JOEL LANE
JOE R. LANSDALE
BARRY N. MALZBERG
NICK MAMATAS
WARREN MOORE
DONNA MOORE
TARA MOSS
KIM NEWMAN
ANA TERESA PEREIRA
BILL PRONZINI
DAVID QUANTICK
KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH
JAMES SALLIS
LAVIE TIDHAR
JOSEPH S. WALKER
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