Sunday, August 09, 2009

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

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um...James Patterson?

*nyuk*

Interesting choice.

Jeff

Patrick Murtha said...

The Valley of Fear is a masterpiece, definitely the most under-valued of the Holmes novels (or Holmes fictions in general). This is a fun choice for Hard Case.

Rusty said...

Man, if he'd had Ardai writing his cover copy, Doyle could have made something of that character.

Rusty

Anonymous said...

An inspired stunt, though one wonders how many youngish hardboied fans will be hoodwinked into buying this unawares. And all the hype in the world won't make the Scowrers chapters any less tedious.

Art Scott