He has worked with authors including Elmore Leonard, Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, Stanley Ellin, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke and Thomas H. Cook.
[2] Among the authors it published (works published in America for the first time, not reprints) are Eric Ambler, Kingsley Amis, Isaac Asimov, Robert Bloch, James M. Cain,[2] Raymond Chandler,[2] Jerome Charyn, Len Deighton, Stanley Ellin, James Ellroy,[2] Patricia Highsmith,[2] P. D. James, H. R. F. Keating, Peter Lovesey, Ed McBain,[2] Ross Macdonald,[2] Marcia Muller, Ellis Peters, Ruth Rendell, Mickey Spillane, Ross Thomas,[2] Donald E. Westlake and Cornell Woolrich.
[4] In 2011, he founded MysteriousPress.com, a publishing house devoted to electronic books featuring such authors as James Ellroy, Donald E. Westlake, Ellery Queen, Joseph Wambaugh, Ross Macdonald, Charlotte MacLeod and many others.
Penzler also befriended many noted authors including Ambler, Ken Follett, John Gardner and others, who inscribed copies of their works.
Some of the American Mystery Classics authors include Mary Roberts Rinehart, John Dickson Carr, and Ellery Queen, all distributed by WW Norton.
[6] In 2019, Penzler teamed up with Pegasus Books to launch Scarlet, a joint publishing venture specializing in psychological suspense aimed at female readers.