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 Justine Eyre, John Lee, and John Allen Nelson

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11 hr 54 min

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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

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About the author

Otto Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and the editor of The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, for which he won an Edgar 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 is a classically trained actress who has narrated over three hundred audiobooks. With a prestigious Audie Award and four AudioFile Earphones Awards under her belt, Justine is multilingual and is known for her great facility with accents.

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.

Otto Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and the editor of The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, for which he won an Edgar Award. John Allen Nelson's critically acclaimed roles on television's 24 and Vanished are among the highlights of his twenty-five-plus ...

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