Murder Is My Racquet (36 page)

Other thrilling volleys show you how to booby-trap a court the lethal way… how the wrong grip can literally kill you… and why you should never, ever play against your spouse. These and other ace stories by
Kinky Friedman, John Harvey, Jeremiah Healy, Stephen Hunter, Judith Kelman, Robert Leuci, Peter Lovesey, David Morrell,
and
Daniel Stashower
display the unbeatable masters of the literary drop shot at the very top of their game.

Carolyn Hartman

OTTO PENZLER
owns The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and founded the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books. He has written and edited several books, including the Edgar
^®
Award-winning
Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection
and the anthology
Dangerous Women
, and is the series editor of the annual
Best American Mystery Stories of the Year
.

“Tennis is not all about gentility—a fact amply illustrated on the following pages. Here, some of the giants of the mystery genre have brought their murderous intentions to center court.

“There’s murder, of course, some of it not terribly genteel at all. You’ll encounter blackmail, voodoo, insanity, and clever scams. You’ll see that human behavior doesn’t vary that much, whether it’s on the pro tour, at the country club, or on a public court.

“Whether the action is centered on a top-ranked player, a hopeless pitty-pat struggler, or a ball boy, there are always secrets to keep and mysteries to unravel. And who better to create these mysteries (and solve them) than a gathering of some of the world’s top-ranked crime writers?”

—Otto Penzler, from the Introduction