by Otto Penzler
As a high school senior, at seventeen, I was already six-six. My knees were coiled springs and injuries were catastrophes that happened to somebody else, somebody smaller and weaker. I was never tired in the last quarter. No, fatigue was what I felt after the party that followed the game, at six o’clock in the morning, with my equally spent girlfriend lying beside me.
I experience all of that again. Just as if I hadn’t thrown it away in a moment of rage. My body is sweat-slick. Sweat drips from my headband into my eyes. I’m completely alive in my flesh now. Flesh is the only reality I have. I measure time in the thump of the ball on the floor. I’m unstoppable.
The moron comes back at the start of the second quarter. By that time, the refs are letting us play again. Meanwhile, the moron backs off when he should be aggressive, then complains bitterly when I hand-check him in the post. I’m being triple-teamed now, the minute I touch the ball, and I’m passing out to Road Miller, who’s draining fifteen-foot jumpers, one after the other.
It’s all over by the middle of the third quarter. We’re up by twenty-two points and the crowd is on its feet, chanting Bub-BA, Bub-BA, Bub-BA. Warden Brook can barely contain himself. He’s dancing around, smacking his fist into his palm. Coach Poole is standing with both arms in the air. He’s shouting instructions, calling a play, but I can’t hear him as I sprint up the court. It doesn’t matter anyway, because Tiny steals the ball and we’re off and running. I’m the trailer on the play with Road coming up fast on the right. Tiny fakes a pass to Road, fakes a layup, then flips the ball over his left shoulder. I receive the pass at the head of the key, take a step to the foul line, then elevate. From a distance, I hear myself scream and I hear the screaming of the fans, a great roar only a half-step removed from utter madness. Then I’m coming down, slamming the ball through the hoop, slamming the palms of my hands into the rim. The backboard jerks forward, then back, then finally shatters, burying me in a sparkling wave of broken glass.
God, I love this game.
You’ve seen the headlines. On the court they brawl with opponents, fight with fans, and attack their own coach. Off the court they get drunk, grope women, and, sometimes, get tried for murder. Now these all-star bad boys from the ranks of today’s pro basketball provide easy layup material for the fictional imaginations of our finest contemporary mystery writers. Refereed by prizewinning editor Otto Penzler, this anthology collects fourteen dazzling, original tales of buzzer-beating suspense and postgame mayhem.
In “Keller’s Double Dribble,” Lawrence Block tails a clueless hitman with courtside tickets to unplanned bloodshed… Jeffery Deaver’s power guard summons his formidable game instincts to thwart a pack of scammers in “Nothing but Net”… a flagrant foul and a cruel betrayal send a star player crashing in Mike Lupica’s “Mrs. Cash”… George Pelecanos’s “String Music” traces the dangerous escalation of a playground beef… and in “Galahad, Inc.,” by Joan H. Parker and Robert B. Parker, a college prodigy seeks unlikely defensive help against a sorority party sex rap.
Other literary slam-dunk tales ask just how hard a former Olympic medalist will fight to get back his old glory… what hustle will win you the dunk-or-die prison matchup… and why the pride of the Knicks will never live to see the playoffs. You’ll find all the answers inside these pages from acclaimed storytellers Sue DeNymme, Brendan DuBois, Parnell Hall, Laurie R. King, Michael Malone, R. D. Rosen, S. J. Rozan, Justin Scott, and Stephen Solomita. There’s the whistle. Here’s the tip-off. Let these great clutch shot-makers put you in the zone.
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 anthologies Murder Is My Racquet and Dangerous Women. He is also the series editor of the annual Best American Mystery Stories of the Year.
“The notion of mixing basketball and crime seems totally predictable—a natural combination, like ham and eggs, Laurel and Hardy, yin and yang. It would be difficult to think that a group of fiction writers, people who make up stories, could find a way to write about crime and criminals in a way that surpasses the real-life adventures we can all read about in the tabloids, but the assembled team of top-notch writers has done just that. This Dream Team of outstanding authors has put together a game plan that will keep you at the edge of your seat right up to the last second.”
—Otto Penzler, from the Introduction
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Praise for DANGEROUS WOMEN
Edited by Otto Penzler
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“I’m not usually given to superlatives, but Dangerous Women may be the best, most varied, and colorful mystery anthology of all time.”—Janet Evanovich
“Otto Penzler knows more about crime fiction than most people know about anything, and proves it once more in this brilliant anthology.”—Robert B. Parker
“Wow, what memorable dames! What terrific short stories! Dangerous Women is a winning collection.”—Susan Isaacs
