Murder for Revenge

Murder for Revenge, edited by Otto Penzler, is a terrific collection of dark mystery stories by Joyce Carol Oates, David Morrell, Lawrence Block, and eight other writers, capped by a brilliant, cruel novella by Peter Straub called "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff." The latter is about the titular characters, hired by a jealous husband to hurt his faithless wife and her lover. The Straub piece alone is worth the price of the book.

Kirkus Reviews

Once you're aware of the rubric the title announces—tit for tat—you know a lot about the plots of most of these dozen new stories, more than you would have known about the plots of the stories in Penzler's Murder for Love (1996), since the possibilities within these present confines are so well-worn. Mostly, you have a choice between the turning worm (Vicki Hendricks, Joan Hess, Judith Kelman, Eric Lustbader, David Morrell) and the biter bit (Peter Straub, in a ghoulish hundred-page remake of Melville's "Bartleby"). A few of the contributors go further. Phillip Margolin adds some welcome ingenuity; Lawrence Block and Joyce Carol Oates put unexpected spins on their stories, as does Shel Silverstein on his poem, that keep you guessing; Mary Higgins Clark, in a Perils-of-Pauline tale of international intrigue, seems to be playing with another deck entirely. But only Thomas H. Cook's somber "Fatherhood" does something genuinely new with the old formula of revenge served cold. More predictable, then, than the tales in Murder for Love (1996), though the level of professionalism is more consistent.

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.