The really nice folks at The New York Sun probably won’t like this, but then they wouldn’t be the first people I’ve irritated in my long life. You see, I imagine they live in hope that book publishers will buy advertisements for their latest hot releases, thereby helping to pay the bills. (You don’ t think it’s the quarter you pay for an issue that covers the overhead, do you?)

Most major publishers, though, think the only newspaper in New York in which an advertisement will do any good is the New York Times — which may help explain why publishing is in so much trouble. The absolute-so-help-me-God-truth is that I cannot remember hearing a single customer in my bookshop at any time in the last 10 years or more say: “I saw an ad for this in the Times, so I want a copy.” Not one.

In any case, I am about to put a damper on whatever slim hopes the advertising department may still harbor about selling a nice quarter-page for a few mystery writers whose publishers might feel are worthy. There is a select group of writers for whom I cannot imagine a scenario that would induce me to review one of their books. I present them here in no particular order, as I would find it difficult to create a credible ranking — much like attempting to rate the relative merit of pigeon droppings.

1 Ruth Rendell. No argument from me if you describe her as one of the best writers of crime fiction alive — at least, she used to be. But let me tell you a little story.

In October 2001, approximately one month after the attacks on America by Arab terrorists, Ms. Rendell was giving a talk at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, after which the floor was opened to questions. A member of the audience asked her about pure evil, citing the terrorist attacks on America as an example.

Ms. Rendell replied that those attacks could not be categorized as evil, since they were carried out “for the highest motives and in the name of freedom.” Even allowing that it is always difficult to ascribe motives to people, the notion that Ms. Rendell excused these acts because they were carried out in the name of freedom utterly degrades the very concept of freedom. Freedom for whom? For the women who live under the influence of Al Qaeda. For the people in the World Trade Center, most of whom had never even heard of Al Qaeda?

Most of my friends do not agree with my political positions, nor I with theirs. There are any number of people I admire for various reasons, none of which has anything to do with their politics. Ms. Rendell’s philosophical viewpoint, however, is so heinous, so reprehensible, that I cannot force myself to be reasonable and attempt to understand her thought process, any more than I could that of Osama bin Laden.

2 Tom Clancy. I’ve read the opening chapter, or prologue, of several books and agree that he can write a very exciting scene. Unfortunately, that lasts for about 10 pages, after which the primary excitement derives from trying to figure out how many acronyms can appear a chapter, or how many different types of rockets (acronyms plus numbers) can dance around the head of a pin.

And the books are long! When I read a Nelson DeMille doorstop, I’m sorry when it ends. A Clancy novel never does.

3 Sharyn McCrumb. As a writer of paperback originals, this intellectual colossus toured relentlessly, signing at every little mystery bookstore that she could find. She was fortunate enough to get a cover quote from Mary Higgins Clark, and her career took off.

As sales increased, every book had the same quote from the divine Ms. Clark, but the less than divine Ms. McCrumb stopped going to mystery stores to sign. When he learned that Ms. McCrumb was at a conference in Minnesota a few years ago, the owner of a mystery specialty store in Minneapolis went to see her to ask her to autograph books at his store, as she had done so many times before. No, she told him. She was now being packaged as a “novelist,” not a mere mystery writer. And, she continued, we’re getting rid of “that,” as she waved her hand dismissively at the cover quote that had made her career. We’re going a little more upscale, she said.

Sharyn McCrumb going upscale is like Miss Piggy going upscale. Oh, and the books are just as stylish as their author.

4 Nora Roberts. If volume were talent, Ms. Roberts would be Shakespeare. The statistics are staggering, with 250 million books sold and more than 150 books published, both under her own name and as J.D. Robb. That’s not all that’s staggering. In the most recent overwritten frolic, “Northern Lights” (Putnam, 562 pages, $25.95), a murder and its subsequent investigation are the ostensible raison d’être for the use of Ms. Roberts’s skills. The crime is, of course, nothing more than a mild diversion from the real reason for the book (giving it the benefit of doubt and allowing that there is, in fact, a reason).

If you have been fortunate enough to have been spared reading any of these interchangeable pulps, you may not know the only actual point of them, which is to provide scenes of lusty, steamy, heart-stopping, blindly thrilling, life-changing sex.

For example (and you were hoping for one, weren’t you?), the hero and his conquest are doing more than washing behind their ears in the shower:

Her breath sobbed out, half-mad pleas as the water poured hot over her shaking body, as the steam blurred her vision … When it burst in her, ripping a line between sanity and madness, he muffled her scream with his mouth … He took her, took her, took her until he was empty, until she was limp as water, her head dropped on his shoulder.

Ms. Roberts may be the bestselling writer in America, but she does for literature what the Boston Strangler did for door-to-door salesmen.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at openzler@nysun.com.