The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives

Otto Penzler

Jan 2010 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by John Allen Nelson, Justine Eyre, and John Lee

About this audiobook

A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and thriller world really come from? What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Lee Child's Jack Reacher a drifter? How did a brief encounter in Botswana inspire Alexander McCall Smith to create Precious Ramotswe? In The Lineup, some of the top mystery writers in the world tell about the genesis of their most beloved characters-or, in some cases, let their creations do the talking. The following characters (and their creators) are featured in this collection: Jack Taylor by Ken Bruen Jack Reacher by Lee Child Hieronymus Bosch by Michael Connelly Charlie Parker by John Connolly Elvis Cole and Joe Pike by Robert Crais Lincoln Rhyme by Jeffery Deaver Inspector Morse by Colin Dexter Charlie Resnick by John Harvey Bob Lee Swagger by Stephen Hunter Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus by Faye Kellerman Alex Delaware by Jonathan Kellerman Dismas Hardy by John Lescroart Tess Monaghan by Laura Lippman Rambo by David Morrell Mallory by Carol O'Connell Spenser by Robert B. Parker Lou Boldt by Ridley Pearson Charlotte and Thomas Pitt by Anne Perry Aloysius X. L. Pendergast by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child John Rebus by Ian Rankin Precious Ramotswe by Alexander McCall Smith

About the author

Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, founded The Mysterious Press in 1975, now an imprint at Grove/Atlantic, and publishes classic crime fiction through MysteriousPress.com. Penzler has won two Edgar Awards, MWA's Ellery Queen Award, and the Raven Award.

John Allen Nelson's critically acclaimed roles on television's 24 and Vanished are among the highlights of his twenty-five-plus years as an actor, screenwriter, and film producer. As a narrator, he won an AudioFile Earphones Award for his reading of Zoo Story by Thomas French.

Justine Eyre has turned her passion for reading and remarkable facility with accents into her dream career. This classically trained, multilingual actress has narrated well over 400 audiobooks and has been honored to receive a coveted Audie Award and multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards.

John Lee has read audiobooks in almost every conceivable genre, from Charles Dickens to Patrick O'Brian, and from the very real life of Napoleon to the entirely imagined lives of sorcerers and swashbucklers. An AudioFile Golden Voice narrator, he is the winner of numerous Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards.