Hard Case Crime Update

Friends,

I know, in my last e-mail I wrote that I planned to keep the identity of our second December title a secret until we got closer to its Christmas-season publication date (I think I said something like "I'll tell you when it gets a little colder outside"). Well, it's only August and still plenty hot here in New York City -- but it's hard to keep a secret in the age of the Internet, especially when sites like Amazon.com put books up for pre-order four months in advance...

Yes: You can now see our second December title on Amazon.com (though you have to hunt around a little, due to a bizarre error that has our book's cover attached for some reason to a horror novel by Gord Rollo). But since they let the cat out of the bag early, I figured we might as well come clean, too -- so you can find a full complement of information on the book (cover art, description, sample chapter) at our Web site: www.HardCaseCrime.com.

And what is the book...? It's the very hard-boiled story of a man murdered by a blast from a sawed-off shotgun to the face at point-blank range; of a criminal on the run from Chicago who comes to a dirty Pennsylvania coal-mining town and winds up locking horns with the corrupt Masonic lodge that runs the town; of a Pinkerton detective who sets out to clean up the town; and of the doom that pursues a man across an ocean and leaves him at the mercy of the world's most ruthless criminal mastermind. It's a story narrated by a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, whose partner in investigating the twisted plot is a drug addicted private investigator with a brain like a steel trap.

And wait till you see the cover -- Glen Orbik has really outdone himself here, with his portrait of a gorgeous, bosomy dame in a transparent negligee watching with horror as a man with a brand on his arm appears in her doorway.

And the author -- it's one of the best-selling authors in the world. His books have been made into movies, computer games, comic books; they've sold tens of millions of copies. He's not someone you'd think of as a Hard Case Crime author in a million years!

Now, I can hear you out there, saying, "Come on, Ardai -- if you're gonna spill, spill already. What's the name of the damn book?"

Well.

I think you're just going to have to visit our Web site and see for yourself.

Charles
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Charles Ardai
Editor, Hard Case Crime