Hard Case Crime Update and Drawing

Friends,

As the heat of summer crests and recedes, we're entering another torrid season: Hard Case Crime's biggest fall season ever. Over the next four months, we've got four original novels coming out (the most we've ever published back-to-back). They are:

* LOSERS LIVE LONGER by Russell Atwood (in stores now!)
* HONEY IN HIS MOUTH by Lester Dent
* QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins
* THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES by Jonny Porkpie

The last two won't be in stores till Halloween and Thanksgiving, respectively -- but if you'd like to get your hands on a copy of one of them earlier than that, you'll be glad to hear that we're going to be giving away a dozen free ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) of each.

The drawing's a little different this time, though. In the interest of trying out new ways to spread the word about Hard Case Crime, this particular drawing involves the Internet service Twitter. (Don't have a Twitter account yet? You can create one for free at www.twitter.com. It takes maybe 30 seconds.)

Here's what you need to do to be entered in the drawing:

STEP 1: Using Twitter, post a message telling all the people who follow you about Hard Case Crime. You can say whatever you like (even "I'm just doing this to enter a drawing!"), but please include the address of our Web site -- www.HardCaseCrime.com -- in your post, so that your friends can see what we're all about. (And if you want to post something that makes them tempted to pick up one of our books for themselves, such as naming your favorite book in the series or telling them what you like about Hard Case Crime, we certainly won't object.) If enough of you post on the same day, "Hard Case Crime" might even become one of the "popular topics" listed at the bottom of Twitter's home page, and who knows how many people might discover us then...

STEP 2: Send an e-mail to drawing@hardcasecrime.com, letting us know what your user name on Twitter is, so we can go to your page and see that you've completed Step 1. Also let us know which book you'd prefer to receive -- QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE or THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES -- and the name and address to which you'd like the book mailed if your entry is selected.

At 5PM (New York time) on September 30 we'll randomly select a dozen people who requested QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE and another dozen who requested THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES, and will mail them each the free book they chose.

Sound like something you'd like to try? Then go ahead and make that Twitter post -- and let us know about it before September 30.

Oh, and if you're not sure which of QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE or THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES you'd prefer? You can find a sample chapter from each at our Web site (again, it's www.HardCaseCrime.com).

And while you're there, you might enjoy seeing the cover (and a sample chapter) of the latest new book we've added to the site: NOBODY'S ANGEL by Shamus Award finalist Jack Clark. This was his first novel, and he never published it professionally -- he was working as a cabdriver in Chicago at the time, and what he did was print up 500 copies of the book himself and sell them one by one to his fares when they got in his cab. Other than those 500 copies, hand-sold by the author well over a decade ago, the book has never seen the light of day...and it should have, since it's an amazing, beautifully written, heartbreaking book -- truly some of the finest pure noir storytelling I've seen in ages. We're very excited to be bringing this book to stores for the first time ever in 2010 -- and if you visit our Web site, you can get a taste of it today...

Best,
Charles
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Charles Ardai
Editor, Hard Case Crime

P.S. If you'd like to follow my posts on Twitter, just go to www.twitter.com, search for "Charles Ardai" and then click the "FOLLOW" button.