Penguin Modern Classics to revive crime and espionage series

Penguin Modern Classics will be reviving its crime and espionage series in summer 2023 with titles by the likes of John le Carré, Josephine Tey and Chester Himes, published with classic “bottle-green” jackets.

The series, to be published in 10-book tranches, will be curated by author and Penguin Press publishing director Simon Winder after being initially discontinued in the 1980s. The publisher said the revival of Penguin Crime and Espionage “has seen Simon dig deep into the archives, reading hundreds of books to determine which of our existing titles should make the list, and which titles, previously not published by Penguin, should have been included years ago."

The first 10 titles to be published will be: Call for the Dead by John le Carré; SS-GB by Len Deighton; Maigret and the Headless Corpse by Georges Simenon; In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes; Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes; The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey; Beast in the Shadows by Edogawa Rampo; Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler; The Drowning Pool by Ross Macdonald; and The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb.

Winder said: “Penguin Modern Classics is one of the great publishers of crime and suspense fiction. I thought it would be enjoyable to pick out some highlights, add some new titles and revive the wonderful green livery Penguin used to use for all its crime fiction.

“These books are united by atmosphere, anxiety, a strong sense of time and place, and an often appalling ingenuity, both on behalf of the authors and their characters.  They have also all aged very well, gaining an additional pleasure from shifts in manners, clothes, wisecracks, politics, murder weapons and potential alibis.

“The novels were designed to be entertainments, albeit sometimes of a very dark kind, and they all plumb extremes.  Fear of fascism or communism, fear of the anonymous city or of a fetid swamp, fear of vast global conspiracies or of just one rather odd family member with a glint in his eye.”

The publisher added: “For lifelong crime lovers, who will no doubt be as excited as we are for the return of the bottle-green jackets as well as the previously unpublished titles, to new readers unsure where to start with the formidable back catalogues of Georges Simenon, Eric Ambler, or Len Deighton, the Penguin Crime and Espionage series is a collection of gems showcasing the best of the Golden Age of Crime.”