Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller: 1001 Midnights (USA 1986)

From the Publisher:
1001 Midnights is the essential reference -- and reading -- book for all aficionados of mystery, detective, and suspense fiction. It is comprised of 1001 plot summaries, author biographies, and critical evaluations of classic and important crime and espionage novels, as well as short story collections seminal to the genre. It is an indispensable volume of information and criticism.

Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller, well known for their mystery novels and anthologies, bring their inside, practitioners' knowledge of the form as well as their enthusiasm as fans to these trenchant and engaging summaries, biographies, and critical judgments. Other experts in the field, most notably Francis M. Nevins, also contribute entries on authors in their areas of expertise.

All the major writers are represented, from Edgar Allan Poe to Elmore Leonard Their careers and works are described, analyzed, and assessed - sometimes to surprising, irreverent, and unorthodox conclusions. Some highly touted practitioners of the mystery genre have their critical reputations debunked, while others currently out of favor are extolled.

But in addition to the famous names there are numerous obscure writers, and 1001 Midnights is unique and rich as a result of their inclusion. Jim Thompson, Leigh Brackett, Thomas B. Dewey, William Campbell Gault, Helen Reilly, and dozens of others are all resurrected from undeserved obscurity and restored to their rightful place in the crime literature pantheon. In the process, the reader is apprised of great writers he or she may not have heard of but who are well worth seeking out.

Whether you prefer hardboiled or classic, Golden Age or contemporary, pure detection or action/adventure, espionage or private eye, 1001 Midnights will afford hundreds of hours of reading pleasure. It is a book to refer to again and again for its practical information, facts, and bibliographies; its memory-jogging plot summaries; its enlightening critical insights; and its gold mine of newly unearthed crime literature treasures. 1001 Midnights is essential to the library of every mystery buff.

BILL PRONZINI and MARCIA MULLER are mystery writers as well as collectors and students of the mystery genre. Bill Pronzini is most noted for his Nameless Detective series, while Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone is her most popular sleuth. Their most recent mystery novel collaboration is Lighthouse, their most recent collaborative anthology The Deadly Arts. They both live in San Francisco, home of the Continental Op and Sam Spade.

Some of the mystery and suspense writers whose careers and works are included in 1001 Midnights:
Margery Allingham, Eric Ambler, John Franklin Bardin, Earl Der Biggers, Robert Bloch, Lawrence Block, Fredric Brown, James M. Cain, Paul Cain, John Dickson Carr, Raymond Chandler, G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, Wilkie Collins, K.C. Constantine, George Harmon Cox, John Creasy, Carroll John Daly, Len Deighton, Thomas B. Dewey, Arthur Conan Doyle, Daphne DuMaurier, Ken Follert, Frederick Forsyth, Dick Francis, R. Austin Freeman, Jacques Futrelle, Erle Stanley Gardner, William Campbell Gault, Graham Greene, Frank Gruber, Dashiell Hammett, George V. Higgins, Patricia Highsmith, Tony Hillerman, Evan Hunter, William Irish, P.D. James, M.M. Kave, Emma Lathen, Jonathan Latimer, John le Carre, Elmore Leonard, Gaston Leroux, Robert Ludlum, Ed MeBain, Horace MeCoy, John D. MacDonald, Philip MacDonald, Ross Macdonald, Gregory Medonald, William P. McGivern, Charlotte MacLeod, Ngaio Marsh, Margaret Millar, A.A. Milne, Frederick Nebel, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Baroness Orezy, Robert B. Parker, Gerald Petievich, Edgar Allan Poe, Melville Davisson Post, Ellery Queen, Ruth Rendell, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Sax Rohmer, Lawrence Sanders, Dorothy L. Sayers, Georges Simenon, Maj Sjöwall and Per Whahlöö, Mickey Spillane, Richard Stark, Rex Stout, Julian Symons, Ross Thomas, Jim Thompson, Dorothy Uhnak, S.S. Van Dine, Robert Van Gulik, Edgar Wallace, Thomas Walsh, Joseph Wambaugh, Donald E. Westlake, Raoul Whitfield, Phyllis A. Whitney, Cornell Woolrich

Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller: 1001 Midnights. The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction. Arbor House, ISBN: 0877956227 (August, 1986), 879 p., $39.95.