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Just in the Inbox from Charles Ardai...
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Friends,
Sorry it's been so long (two months!) since you've heard from me -- I was busy wrapping up work on our big "50th anniversary" book, FIFTY-TO-ONE, which will be published at the end of the year. I'm pleased to report that the book is done, and I'm quite happy with how it came out. It's a comedy -- that seemed more properly celebratory, somehow, than the more bleak sort of book I've written in the past. And if you look closely you may spot a cameo or two from some friends of the Hard Case Crime family. (To begin with, one chapter of the book was written by Hard Case Crime co-founder -- and Shamus Award winner for FADE TO BLONDE -- Max Phillips. I'm not saying which chapter...that's for you to figure out.) The book will also feature an 8-page full-color insert section showing images of all of our first 50 covers, which will be a real treat. That insert section is the one piece of the book that's not ready yet.
Our November title, David J. Schow's GUN WORK, is a terrific, fierce, frightening read, as grim and troubled as FIFTY-TO-ONE is light and madcap. We're very excited to be ending the year with four big original novels -- but we hope you'll sample some of our great classic revivals in the meantime. In stores now are Donald E. Westlake's cabbie-versus-gangsters comedy SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY and Steve Fisher's great Las Vegas novel NO HOUSE LIMIT (about a marathon crap game with the casino it's held in going to the winner). Coming in just a few weeks is BABY MOLL by best-selling author John Farris -- it's the book's first publication in more than 50 years, and its first ever under the author's real name. And if you haven't already read it you should still be able to find a copy of our May title, Shepard Rifkin's THE MURDERER VINE, which has been winning raves left and right (for example, the San Francisco Chronicle called it "stunning...one of the fastest, smartest, most entertaining and deeply affecting detective stories you'll ever read"). If you're heading off for a vacation any time soon, I can't think of better reading to bring with you than a selection of these terrific rediscovered gems from the past.
And looking ahead to the future, when you go to our Web site you'll see we've posted the cover of our next Westlake book, THE CUTIE. It's the first novel Don ever wrote, it was nominated for the Edgar Award (and very much deserved to be), and it's never appeared under the title he originally meant it to have. We'll be correcting that in 2009.
And later in 2009 we'll be bringing out the first American edition ever of Jason Starr's "lost" novel, FAKE I.D., about a bar bouncer who dreams of making it big in the horse racing game. Things don't work out as planned.
In other words, there's lots of good stuff coming -- so keep cool, and keep reading...
Best,
Charles
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Charles Ardai
Editor, Hard Case Crime
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