Lawrence Block's Blog, page 6
June 19, 2020
“Happy Birthday, Dear Keller…”
Today, in addition to being Juneteenth, is Keller’s birthday. Now Keller, who kills people for money and collects stamps for pleasure, is a fictional character, essentially a figment of my overactive imagination. So one might well wonder what he needs with a birthday, or why we need to know it. But it came up years ago in the course of a long story called “Keller’s Horoscope,” which became an episode in the second Keller book, Hit List. (So our boy’s a Gemini on the cusp of Cancer, and if you want to know more about his natal chart you’ll have read the story.)
I remember his birthday because of a dear woman, Marilyn Furman, who always congratulated me on favorable reviews, and who never failed to remember Keller’s birthday and Matt Scudder’s sobriety date. On one such occasion I added Keller’s birthday to my Google calendar, and otherwise it would nowadays pass unnoticed, because a few years ago Marilyn died, and I have to say I miss her. You could say she lives on in my calendar, but a fat lot of good that does her.
I don’t know how old Keller is. Matthew Scudder ages in real time. Bernie Rhodenbarr doesn’t age at all. Keller’s somewhere in the vague middle, getting a little older but at a measured pace. Like Mr. Scudder, I myself have made the mistake of aging in real time, and my Airborne birthday is but a few days from now, on the 24th. I may find myself saying more about that closer to the date, but maybe not. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, if you have the urge to celebrate Keller’s birthday in appropriate fashion, “Keller’s Horoscope” is available for Kindle. If you’re a Kindle Unlimited member you can read it for free. If not, rather than pay $2.99 for it I’d suggest you pick up Hit List in ebook or printed form, or in the fine audio version voiced by George Guidall.
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June 14, 2020
If you’ve been wondering about my new book…
Why don’t I let these good people tell you about DEAD GIRL BLUES?
“Dark and cold as the far side of the moon, but with prose as lean as a starving model, DEAD GIRL BLUES is like the dead body you can’t help but look at. I couldn’t quit reading, and damn sure didn’t want to. A grim masterpiece of storytelling.”
~ Joe R. Lansdale
“The book is so dark it veers into the ultraviolet. But it’s also fearless, and it does what art is supposed to do. If you’re willing to 
be horrified by what you see and by the lens through which you see it, maybe Lawrence Block will sing you those DEAD GIRL BLUES.
~Warren Moore
“DEAD GIRL BLUES still claws at me. It’s a time-release dread capsule that locked me in someone’s shoes and made my gut twist all along the ride. Maybe his best book, and that’s saying something.”
~Tom Straw
“It’s been a long time since I read anything this hard-hitting and thought-provoking. DEAD GIRL BLUES is daringly original, both shocking and brilliantly told.”
~ David Morrell
“DEAD GIRL BLUES will surely offend some readers, but I loved it. It’s wonderfully written and the voice is pitch-perfect, comfortable and unsettling at the same time. If you are into dark noir, this book is for you.”
~Lee Goldberg
“This is an astonishing novel, the most profound examination and evisceration of identity which I have encountered in decades. A stunning and terminally unsettling work.”
~Barry N. Malzberg
“It’s a meditation on dark impulses and trying to live with them that is going to haunt me for a good long while. Some people have already noted that this is one of Block’s best books, and you can add me to that list.”
~Kemper’s Book Blog
“When the novel turned out to be a weirdly quiet, weirdly gentle story of a man who may have gotten away with worse than murder, and how he lives with it—well, it surprised me. I didn’t know how compelling such a contemplation would be, and how tense and thrilling. It’s that throttling sense of not knowing that makes this bizarre book so fantastic. Come for the violence. Stay for the if.”
~Kevin Quigley @ Goodreads
“Lawrence Block’s first published novel hit the shelves in 1958. That means that the author has published books in eight different decades. Let that marinate in your mind for a minute. Even more remarkable: the quality of his work hasn’t slipped a bit. He’s still got the magic.”
~Tom Simon @ Paperback Warrior
“I believe it was Ed Gorman who said that Block writes the best sentences in the business. That’s still true. This is a book that may not be for everybody, since it’s a little squirm-inducing in places, but it’s also heartwarming at times, in its own oddball way. I really liked it.”
~James Reasoner @ Rough Edges
“It’s a horrible book, insofar as it (in this reader at least) inspired horror. And it’s an absolute triumph. Block elevates DEAD GIRL BLUES into something that’s by turns chilling, warming, disturbingly erotic. It’s a book about the monster in all of us, and what happens when that monster gets loose. And it’s a book, I think, about learning to live with the monster and the consequences of our actions. One of the best books he’s ever written.”
~Derek Farrell @ Do Some Damage
“One of the most powerful and scary books Block has written. The scary part is the way the sociopath who commits the horrible crime proceeds to acquire the veneer of socialization that allows him to become one of the pillars of his community. Oh, and his portrayal rings true. I have two sociopathic relatives, and the portrayal resonates very closely to how they behave.”
~Deb Wunder @ Goodreads
“I would find myself at times actually rooting for this guy, but then I’d remember just exactly what he is and get brought back down to earth. It’s such an incredible achievement! DEAD GIRL BLUES is likely to be the most interesting book I read in 2020.”
~Brandon Sears @ Every Good Read
Well, after all these years in the business, I guess you’ve got a lot of friends. Are you planning to do anything with these quotes besides share them here?
They’re the new product description on the Amazon page. I used to have a couple of paragraphs warning people away from DEAD GIRL BLUES, and I decided to shut up and get out of the way.
That’s usually a good idea. The book’s coming out June 24?
Right.
The day you turn 82.
Right again.
And you’re publishing Luigi Garlaschelli’s Edizione Italiana the same day, if I remember correctly. And Tantor will release Peter Berkrot’s audio rendition, and isn’t that also June 24?
It is.
And all of these indispensable items can be preordered right now? Don’t bother answering that. Of course they can. Why else would you put in all the hyperlinks?
Uh…
Never mind. How are you doing with the preorders? I just know you’re gonna tell me they’re exceeding expecations.
I didn’t really have any expectations. It seems to me we’re getting good preorders for the ebook and hardcover editions. Some gremlins at Amazon are making it impossible to preorder the paperback, but it seems to be available via Barnes & Noble.
As I recall, we can save $2 by preordering the ebook. What do we save by preordering the printed book and the audiobook?
Time. Anxiety. Wear and tear on one’s memory.
That’s all?
I’m afraid so.
And is that all for this newsletter? No bargains, no tips, no suggestions as to what to read? No cute little stories about some pithy observation your Frequent Companion came up with?
Not a one.
The two of you bought caterpillars and are waiting for them to turn into butterflies. Want to talk about that?
Not particularly.
Oh. Well, okay. No list of appearances? No, of course not. You’re an old guy in the middle of a pandemic that’s busy knocking off old guys left and right. You’re not about to leave your house to sign books, are you?
No.
Well, I guess I can’t blame you. What else is there to say?
Just this:
Cheers,
PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.
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June 3, 2020
12 Lawrence Block ebooks! 57.22460658083% discount!
Your response was off the charts. No joke, we moved way more copies than either of us expected. So I suggested that maybe we could do it again. This time we could call it a June Jamboree, or Midsummer Madness, or something.
The Great Leader vetoed the names but greenlighted the rest of it. I asked questions like which books and how to price them, basic questions, and he pointed out the folly in taking something that works and changing it. “Keep everything the same,” he said.
Well, not exactly the same. Different books, duh. But I’ve picked twelve of them, all priced at $6.99 and reduced this week only to $2.99. Two titles each by Jill Emerson and John Warren Wells, one Chip Harrison caper, three Classic Crime Library titles, and four from the Collection of Classic Erotica.
I’ll take them from the top, okay? A Madwoman’s Diary grew out of a case history written up in one of the John Warren Wells 
books. LB couldn’t get it out of his mind, saw it as the germ of a novel, and wrote it in diary form. (Then “Jill” dedicated it to JWW, “a jack-of-all-trades and master of me.” Yes, I know—I work for a very strange man.) A Madwoman’s Diary has two reviews on Amazon; Bill McCall gives it five stars and says, “This is a typical high quality Block offering. His characterisation is spot on; the narrative is gripping and fulfilling; the plot just like everything he does – it holds and entertains throughout. Buy the damn thing!” Another reader flips us off with a single star: “Perhaps this book appeals to male humans from New York City. The story is depressing and the ending is really depressing.”
Depressing? Really? LB was positively giddy the other day after he had a chance to hear the beginning of P.J. Morgan‘s audiobook-in-progress. Her rendition of Passport to Peril has already drawn a great Audible.com review, and her take on A Madwoman’s Diary should be wrapped up and on sale soon.
A Week as Andrea Benstock is Jill again, with another complicated and convincing female protagonist—but it’s a different sort of a book, focusing on seven significant days over ten years of a woman’s marriage. (A Georges Simenon novel provided LB with the idea for the basic structure.) At an editor’s suggestion, he set the book where he grew up, in the Jewish community of Buffalo, and produced a mainstream novel that was published in hardcover by Arbor House and serialized in the magazine Redbook. There’s more to the story on the Amazon page, and it’s worth checking out. And I have to say this particular novel’s closer to John O’Hara than John Warren Wells.
Speaking of JWW, first up is Versatile Ladies, which bears the subtitle “The Bisexual Option.” I’d call that an improvement on the title the original publisher hung on the 
book: Women Who Swing Both Ways. “I loved it,” one reviewer wrote, “but am quite a fan. Read it if you want to see how an illustrious career got its start, and how time has turned Block into a master. Newcomers should start with his earlier Matthew Scudder stories-you’ll be hooked!” Another was more emphatic: “It stinks! This book serves no useful purpose!! NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! I can’t say enough NO!!! NO!!! NO!!!”
Ah well. Can’t please everybody, can you? FWIW, I have to admit I enjoyed the book, and picked it for this promotion in part because I like JWW’s dedication: “For Jill Emerson, unquestionably versatile and every inch a lady.” Kids, um, get a room, huh?
LB has said that the John Warren Wells books “evolved into legitimacy” over the several years when he wrote them. They began largely as fiction dressed as fact, and as he heard from and interacted with readers, the case histories morphed from fiction to reportage. That was certainly true of Love at a Tender Age, where the subjects were individuals LB knew personally or through correspondence. So the book’s kind of genuine, and I found it absorbing, but I can’t find a single reviewer who said anything at all good about it. Like, not a one. The original publisher, Lancer Books, called it “The most explosive and enlightening reading of the year.” That may be a stretch, but for $2.99 you get to decide for yourself. And if you like it, well, we could certainly use a favorable review.
Several weeks ago, LB was on a Zoom launch for The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe; LB’s Chip Harrison short story, “As Dark as Christmas Gets,” was among the 
pastiches and parodies collected by Josh Pachter. Chip appeared in four books—the first pair are coming-of-age novels, No Score and Chip Harrison Scores Again, while the latter two are detective stories in which young Chip plays Archie Goodwin to Leo Haig, who’s been called “a sort of road company Nero Wolfe.” The first of the mysteries is Make Out With Murder. The book has had a lot of reviews, mostly favorable, but I can’t help sharing this one of Mia’s with you: “I am a Lawrence Block fan. I like the older ones better. Not positive about this but I heard that Lawrence Block passed away years ago and his son is writing the newer books. I don’t know for SURE so not to spread rumors.” Thanks for not spreading rumors, Mia. Just so you know, LB doesn’t have a son. Last I checked, however, he still had a pulse.
When LB was starting out, the TV tie-in novel put food on the tables of a lot of hungry writers. (“Not steak,” the man says. 
“More like rice and beans.”) Coward’s Kiss had its beginnings as a tie-in novel, linked to the television series Markham, starring Ray Milland. It was LB’s first shot at writing a first-person private eye novel, and it came out well enough that the author and his agent tried it with Gold Medal instead of showing it to the third-tier house that had commissioned it. Knox Burger bought it for Gold Medal, LB changed Markham’s name to Ed London, and got rid of the Renault Dauphine Markham drove on TV. (Renault sponsored the show.) Ed London went on to star in a trio of novelettes, eventually collected in One Night Stands and Lost Weekends. Meanwhile, LB cringed to see his title changed to Death Pulls a Doublecross, then gritted his teeth and wrote another Markham tie-in for Belmont. (It’s available now as You Could Call It Murder.)
Up next is The Girl with the Long Green Heart, also first published by Gold Medal and now available in paperback from [image error]Hard Case Crime. It’s the story of a couple of grifters who team up to work a long con real estate swindle. I can’t improve on Dave Wilde‘s reiew for Amazon, so why try? “This 1965 novel is classic Lawrence Block at his best. Think Redford and Newman in The Sting and you’ll have a handle on this book. Although in an afterword, Block points out that his book was published half a dozen years before the movie came out. The amazing thing is how absolutely engrossing it is. First class writing deserving of nothing less than the highest rating. I enjoyed it from beginning to end.“
The Amazon page tells the story of Cinderella Sims, and it’s worth a look whether or not you’re interested in the book. A very young LB started out with an idea for a crime novel, lost 
enthusiasm for it a few chapters in, and then wrapped it up as an Andrew Shaw title for Nightstand. But it wound up being a crime novel after all, and years later he let himself be talked into reprinting it, and now it’s one of the more popular entries in the Classic Crime Library. Eight Amazon reviews, all four or five stars. Here are some snippets: “As always Block creates totally offbeat plots and carries you along for the ride with enough side steps to keep you interested.” “This tale has more twists than a pair of mating anacondas. Cinderella Sims is definitely a person I’d never want to meet.” “Worth a look for fans of pulp novels and a must-have for Lawrence Block aficionados.”
When he decided to add A Woman Must Love to the Collection of Classic Erotica, LB read the book for the first time in 57 years; his musings on the book’s Amazon page are worth 
your time. One thing that struck him was that the book was less an example of erotica than a pure romance novel: “Barbara, a young widow, has vowed to be true to her husband’s memory (even though he’d wished otherwise). She’s courted, and she has a couple of adventures, and there’s a certain amount of coupling in the book of one sort or another, but the damn thing’s a romance, and I have to wonder how I came to write it.” And, while you can’t tell a book by its cover, this one by the great Paul Rader is a keeper.
You may know that LB’s early works include a trio of erotic novels written in collaboration with his friend Donald Westlake. 
The lads wrote alternate chapters, letting the plot make itself up as they went along, and the books (A Girl Called Honey, So Willing, and Sin Hellcat) were collected decades later in a handsome Subterranean Press volume, Hellcats and Honeygirls. What you may not know is that LB also collaborated with another close friend, Hal Dresner, who would move on to a distinguished career as a screenwriter. The two did only one book together, Circle of Sinners, its format a repurposing of Arthur Schnitzler‘s classic stage play, La Ronde. They had fun doing it, LB says, and they’re still friends almost sixty years later.
Gigolo Johnny Wells is, let me assure you, no relation to JWW. I asked LB about this one, and got this reply: “When you [image error]do a book a month for a publisher, you can aim for competence in all of them, but only a few will have much in the way of inspiration. This one did; I really got into it, and that may be why the editor—probably Harlan Ellison—changed the ending, restored a dead Johnny to life, and insisted I write a sequel. Which I suppose I must have done, but I’ve never been able to track it down.” So is it a Genuine Lost Book? And will one of you out there discover it, a continuation of the Johnny Wells saga? Probably not…but please let us know if you do. I should note that Nightstand published this book as Lover; LB retitled it when he added it to the Collection of Classic Erotica.
April North was LB’s first book for Beacon, published under his Sheldon Lord byline. It was reprinted twice, which didn’t do [image error]much for the young author, as he was paid a flat rate with no royalties. The book has three Amazon reviews—5-star, 4-star, and this 3-star review by Barry Rosen: “April North, a sort of formulaic potboiler of a cautionary tale about a high school girl who falls victim to her own promiscuity, is a very early book by mystery grand master Lawrence Block. Written by anyone else, this one would be difficult to get through. But even as a young author, Block’s gift is evident, and fans will enjoy the writing, as well as Block’s essay that follows the novel, detailing how the novel, and Block’s career, came to be. Actually, this might be a 3.5.” I like the way Barry wrote himself all the way to that extra half star. I also like the cover art—a lot. Full disclosure: Have to admit that I haven’t read the book itself. It’s on my TBR pile…
AUDIO—I noted above that P.J. Morgan‘s at work on the audiobook version of A Madwoman’s Diary. Here’s where the other eleven titles stand in the audio universe:
A Week as Andrea Benstock. Not yet in audio, but in the planning stages.
Versatile Ladies and Love at a Tender Age. Not yet in audio, and I’m not sure we’ll be doing them. Of the John Warren Wells books, Wide Open has been doing nicely in audio, narrated by Don Sobczak, and 3 is Not a Crowd has been superbly recorded by Bill Weeden and Dolores McDougal, returning to a topic they treated so deftly in Threesome; we’re just waiting for the audiobook to navigate ACX’s thoroough approval process.
Make Out With Murder, along with the other three Chip Harrison books, has been very skillfully narrated by Gregory Gorton for AudioGo.
A couple of years ago, Peter Berkrot voiced Coward’s Kiss for Blackstone Audio; he did the same for the book written to replace it, You Could Call It Murder. (And Peter has recently wrapped LB’s upcoming novel, Dead Girl Blues, for Tantor Audio—and if you can’t wait to hear it, well, you’re not the only one.)
Alan Sklar has recorded quite a few Lawrence Block books, most recently Evan Tanner #2, The Canceled Czech. He voiced The Girl With the Long Green Heart for Blackstone Audio, and it’s excellent. (No surprise there.)
Cinderella Sims is our newest audiobook, just released through ACX. Theo Holland, whose projects with LB include The Adulterers and Resume Speed, has done his usual fine job giving voice to it. And now, when a lesser man might turn into a pumpkin, Theo’s turning instead to the Block-Westlake joint venture, Sin Hellcat.
Some of you have heard Barbara Nevins Taylor‘s utterly engaging narration of Of Shame and Joy. I’m happy to report that the next audiobook on her agenda is A Woman Must Love; it’s in the works, and should be on virtual shelves before long.
As for Circle of Sinners, Gigolo Johnny Wells, and April North, we hope they’ll all blossom one day as audiobooks. But that’ll be a while yet. Rest assured I’ll let you know the moment they do!
That’s almost it for now—and not a moment too soon. LB’s notes include the strong suggestion that I thank you all for making the May 31st launch of The Darkling Halls of Ivy a success. The anthology is off and running, capitalizing on strong early reviews. (And the limited edition from Subterranean Press is, as expected, already out of print. If your order was confirmed, no worries, you’ll receive it soon. If you did miss out, our library-binding hardcover is the next best thing.)
I’m also urged to remind you that Dead Girl Blues is less than three weeks away from its June 24th publication on LB’s 82nd 
birthday, and the best way to wish him many happy returns (always an odd thing to wish a publisher, come to think of it) is by giving yourself a present—by preordering the book.
Well, I’ll be darned. When I set up that last hyperlink, I discovered that Peter Berkrot’s audiobook is also available for preorder. I could swear it wasn’t on offer yesterday. So click away and preorder the book, or preorder the audio version, or—hey, here’s an idea! Grab them both!
Before I let you go, here’s a list of the twelve Kindle ebooks on this special promotion. A Madwoman’s Diary, A Week as Andrea Benstock, Versatile Ladies, Love at a Tender Age, Make Out With Murder, Coward’s Kiss, The Girl With the Long Green Heart, Cinderella Sims, A Woman Must Love, Circle of Sinners, Gigolo Johnny Wells, and April North. Remember, they’re reduced from $6.99 to $2.99, and we can guarantee to keep that price through June 12th.
Oops! I almost forgot. Luigi Garlaschelli, who’s been busy in recent years turning the serviceable English of Lawrence Block into the mellifluous Italian of Dante and Boccaccio, has completed his translation of Dead Girl Blues, and it’s scheduled for publication on June 24th, the very same day that the book launches in English. Yet another birthday present for LB—and for the italophonic readers in our midst, who can save $2 by preordering it now. Note the imaginative title: Dead Girl Blues — Edizione Italiana.
Whew! That’s all I got.
Cheers,
David Trevor, sitting in once again for
a
PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.
May 25, 2020
Escape…while there’s still time!
Escape. . .while there’s still time!
Seriously? Isn’t there enough panic going around without a scare headline from you?
Um, it’s sort of a play on words. Escape While There’s Still Time was a bookstore in Eugene, Oregon, run by the late Bill Trojan. He specialized in genre fiction, chiefly SF and mysteries. Escape literature, in other words, so—
I get it.
That’s a comfort. And I find myself this afternoon with two books to champion, each a volume into which I’d urge readers to escape, and in both instances time is—
Of the essence?
Well, let’s just say it’s a consideration. Both titles are now available for preorder, and all of y’all who get your orders in before the on-sale date will save a couple of dollars.
One’s an anthology, The Darkling Halls of Ivy. As you might guess, its 18 stories are all set in the world of higher education. Subterranean Press is bringing out a deluxe signed-and-numbered edition, and if you act now you may be able to secure a copy. And I’m self-publishing TDHOI in ebook, paperback, and library-binding hardcover.
Give me a reason to buy this one.
I’ll give you eighteen reasons, in alphabetical order: Jill D. Block. Nicholas Christopher. Reed Farrel Coleman. Tod Goldberg. Jane Hamilton. A. J. Hartley. Gar Anthony Haywood. Owen King. Joe R. Lansdale. John Lescroart. David Levien. Peter Lovesey. Seanan McGuire. Warren Moore. David Morrell. Ian Rankin.Tom Straw. Xu Xi.
That reason enough for you?
That’s quite a lineup.
I know. And the stories are every bit as impressive as the list of contributors.
What about Lawrence Block? Didn’t you go to college?
For a while, but I wasn’t very good at it. I never did get a diploma, and if I had it would have said Summa Cum Lousy. No, there’s no story of mine in the book. But I did manage to scratch out a foreword for TDHOI. I called it “Something to Skip,” and one reviewer seemed to think that was a fair assessment.
Ouch.
I guess I asked for it. Aside from that moment of snark, the early word has been very good. Excellent, actually. TDHOI got starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and has picked up another distinction not often granted to anthologies; Tantor Audio will be bringing out an audiobook edition. No idea when that’s coming, or who’ll be voicing the stories.
But I’m sure you’ll let us know.
Count on it. I’m surprised, actually, that more anthologies and collections don’t make it to audio. You’d think a book that so lends itself to stopping and starting would be a natural for the medium. My Keller books have always done particularly well in audio, and while I consider them episodic novels, I can’t really argue with readers who think of them as linked short stories. And the collected Ehrengraf stories, voiced by the late and much lamented Don Sobczak, have been a steady seller.
The onsale date for TDHOI is May 31. That’s seven days away as I write these lines, and a day or two less by the time I hit SEND and you get around to opening and reading it. So while we’re not quite on the cusp of Instant Gratification, we’re getting there.
So why preorder? Well, it’ll save you money. The ebook of The Darkling Halls of Ivy will cost you $7.99 before May 31 and $9.99 after. That’s a clear savings of $2, and if a penny saved is a penny earned, this boosts your benefit by a factor of 200.
Still, what can you get these days for two bucks?
Well, do the math. In this instance you can get four and a half excellent stories, not to mention a few hundred words of the introduction.
Oh, never mind. Preordering also saves you the trouble of remembering, and frees up your mind so that you can forget something else altogether. But what you can do right now is preorder TDHOI at Amazon or Apple or Barnes & Noble or Kobo.
I think I know what the other book is. I bet it’s the one you’ve been warning people away from for a couple of months now.
I’ve said not everybody will like it, and I wrote a piece for Mystery Fanfare explaining why. And the reviews that have been coming in agree—but, I’m very pleased to say, all the reviewers have liked it themselves—a lot. (Here’s the most recent review, from Derek Farrell at Do Some Damage.) There seems to be a consensus that Dead Girl Blues is one of my best books ever.
Now some would say that’s not a very high bar, but it’s still a nice thing to hear about something I wrote at an age when most distinguished authors are trying to figure out why they’ve gone and put the car keys in the butter dish.
I’m sure you had a good reason. When’s the book’s release date?
June 24th. That strikes me as appropriate: Dead Girl Blues is set for takeoff on my Airborne Birthday. It’s likely to be a triple launch, as the German and Italian translations will probably be ready in time.
And voice artist Peter Berkrot has wrapped the Dead Girl Blues audiobook, and Tantor will be releasing it around the time the book ships.
And those of us who preorder—
—will hold a special place in my heart. You’ll also save another two dollars; the ebook of DGB is $7.99 until June 24, $9.99 after. Order from Amazon or Apple or Barnes & Noble.
What about printed books?
Both books are available as paperbacks ($14.99) or case-laminated hardcovers ($24.99). You won’t save money preordering the printed books, the cost structure rules that out, but you’re ensuring you get your books sooner rather than later. Shipping and production and everything else can be uncertain these days, so it makes sense to get your order in early.
And prices might go up after publication. This way a simple mouse click will lock in the best price.
You make a persuasive case. But I’m in no rush. I’ve still got plenty of time.
Less time than you had a few paragraphs ago. Remember I said the TDHOI release date was seven days away? Well, now it’s down to six days, and I still haven’t managed to get this in the mail, and who knows what day it’ll be when you get around to reading it?
And the last thing I want to do is keep you from preordering in timely fashion by nattering away here any longer than necessary, so I’ll wrap this up and—
Hey, wait a minute! Is that all? Two new books to boost, and an offhand nod to your Ehrengraf audiobook? And that’s all?
I’m afraid so.
No teasers about upcoming plans? No hints that some forgotten old book of yours is just what we needed to enrich our reading lives?
Not this time.
And no special bargains? No offering of backlist ebooks at a huge discount? You ran a sale earlier this month, and I backed my Kindle to the loading dock and stocked up.
You weren’t the only one. That was a very successful promotion, and I’ve told David to pick ten or a dozen books and run ’em up the flagpole. But that won’t be for another week or so, and I’ll let him choose the books and work out the details.
While you get your car keys out of the butter dish.
Is that where I left them? I’m sure I had my reasons. But I’m afraid that’s really it for today. I don’t want to go all Ancient Mariner on you, so let me let you escape— while there’s still time.
Cheers,
PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.
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May 13, 2020
LB’s Socially-Distanced Middle-of-May Newsletter
BACK UP SIX FEET. THEN READ THIS.
Well, that’s attention-getting.
I’m glad you like it.
I didn’t say I liked it. I said it gets one’s attention. And helps remind people that this is a time when they get to flip-flop back and forth between boredom and terror .
I suppose. But, y’know, I think that’s all we need of that. The dialogue-with-self is useful, and it comes naturally enough, but I’m going to drop it for now. It’s similarly easy when I write fiction to spend a little too much time on banter—Bernie-and-Carolyn, say, or Dot-and-Keller, or Matt-and-Elaine. Easy to let those scenes run on too long, and the reader might find them entertaining, even as I find them a pleasure to write, but somewhere along the way the story gets lost.
This isn’t exactly the same, and it’s certainly less entertaining for all of us, but you see the parallel. And there’s a pandemic raging around us, and I’m cooped up in my apartment (and rather hope you are as well), and had two close friends die within the past month (and hope you’ve been spared that).
A few hours ago I put on my mask and gloves and went to the drugstore, and rather than sit down and wait for my refilled prescription, or go home and come back in ten minutes, I took myself for a fifteen-minute walk. That’s the most I’ve walked in the past six weeks or so, and while I get a good look at closed stores and empty streets from my window, it intensified the experience to see them close up.
I don’t want this to be maudlin, nor do I delude myself into thinking I have any special perspective on The Way Things Are. But I’ll let the foregoing set the table for the few things I think might be worth sharing with you. (And if you don’t agree, well, there’s a reason your keyboard came with a DELETE key.)
1. A Time and a Place for Writing. As some of you will recall, I had a twice-a-week workshop scheduled for April at Brooklyn’s The Center for Fiction. When we pulled the plug in early March, I turned it into a virtual event, with the same schedule—Tuesday and Thursday evenings—but everybody did it at home. No commuting time, no tuition to pay, nobody judging you—and if you cut all your classes, who would know?
I think it went well. Except for a request at the end for an evaluation of the experience, there was nothing to turn in, so I never knew (and don’t need to know) what proportion of the participants did in fact participate, and to what extent. The feedback I got was extremely positive, and quite heartening, but who knows how many elected to keep their disappointment to themselves? Or how many of my twice-weekly emails were deleted upon receipt, or slid away into a spam filter?
Sixty-six writers enrolled, some from the other side of the country, one from Germany. I know that I got something out of the experience. One man suggested I find a way to keep it going, perhaps finding a way to monetize it sufficiently to cover my time. Others said they hoped I’d offer it once again at the Center for Fiction, at some future date when live in-person events are again an option.
And I myself briefly entertained the idea of packaging my emails and some of their feedback and whatever else seemed appropriate and offering the result as an ebook.
But I don’t think so. The emails are repetitive, and to read one after another would cure anyone’s insomnia, even if his name were Evan Tanner. And the useful material in those emails can all be found in Write For Your Life, essentially the textbook for the workshop. Spend $14.99 on the paperback and do it yourself.
As for me, I’m glad to have conducted the workshop, and grateful to all who took part. And who knows? A year from now I may talk myself into having another go at it in some form or another. Right now, though, it looks like One and Done.
2. It hasn’t been all that long since my last newsletter, the one with price reductions on a dozen backlist ebooks. That was my Trusted Assistant’s idea, and I let him draft it and format it and send it out, and I’m beginning to think I should get him to do all my 
newsletters. The books have been flying off Amazon’s virtual shelf. He guaranteed to hold the price at $2.99 through May 15, so you can click here and read the whole thing on my website, and if there’s anything that appeals you have Thursday and Friday to scoop it up. (And if Friday 5/15 has come and gone by the time you read this, you may have a day or two’s grace; there’s often a little lag time between our entering a price change and the new price going live on Amazon.)
David says I should point out that the hottest title of the twelve has been Four Lives at the Crossroads. No idea why. FLATC and its eleven cousins will be priced at $6.99 each when the sale’s over, so that’s a savings of 57.2246%. In round numbers, that is.
3. I have two new books coming out soon, both now available for preorder. The first, on sale May 31, is The Darkling Halls of Ivy, an anthology of stories set in the world of higher education. The book has drawn 
starred reviews in both Booklist and Publishers Weekly, and the credit for that goes to the world-class array of contributing authors. And in Cemetery Dance, Blu Gilliand writes: “The Darkling Halls of Ivy strikes a nice balance of new and established voices, resulting in a solid mix of stories featuring all the backstabbing, tension, jealousy, rage, selfishness, and murderous intent you could ask for. Definitely recommended.”
What’s my secret? Couldn’t be simpler—recruit terrific writers and stay out of their way. Works every time. For the full list of contributors, go to the Subterranean Press page offering their signed-and-numbered deluxe edition. After the lineup has rendered you gobsmacked, pull yourself together and preorder the book, as their editions tend to be fully subscribed by presstime. (Pro tip: Do NOT order the limited edition from Amazon.)
If you want the ebook, the paperback, or the hardcover trade edition, preordering will assure you of an early copy. It’ll also save you a couple of bucks. The ebook is $7.99 now; the price edges up to $9.99 once it’s published. The paperback and hardcover are $14.99 and $24.99, and they’ll probably get an upward adjustment as well.
4. People have been throwing bouquets at Dead Girl Blues. Check out the Amazon book description to read what David Morrell, Tom Straw, Barry N. Malzberg, Lee Goldberg, and Joe R. Lansdale have had to say.
And look at these from Twitter:
Brian Koppelman: “Masterful. Deeply disturbing. Discomfiting. But magnificent.”
Ethan Iverson: “I am an *expert* in Lawrence Block and his latest, Dead Girl Blues, is his best. No foolin’.”
Kevin Quigley: “I have to say that I never expected a straight guy to write so expertly on the subject of trying to fantasize your way out of your own sexuality. Aside from some obvious differences, he could’ve been writing about me at 15.”
Thomas Pluck: “It makes a sort of trilogy with Getting Off and The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes, a master of crime fiction embracing the unexpected. Wow.”
Here’s James Reasoner at Rough Edges: “This is a book that may not be for everybody, since it’s a little squirm-inducing in places, but it’s also heartwarming at times, in its own oddball way. I really liked it, and if you’re a Lawrence Block fan, you’ll want to read it.”
And Deb Wunder on Goodreads: “One of the most powerful and scary books Block has written. The opening slams the reader into front row seats at the commission of a horrible crime. The scary part is the way the sociopath proceeds, over the course of his life, to acquire the veneer of socialization that allows him to become one of the pillars of his community — even as he acknowledges that his sociopathic tendencies are still there, and not all that deeply under his skin. Oh, and his portrayal rings true. I have two sociopathic relatives, and the portrayal resonates very closely to how they behave.”
Release date for Dead Girl Blues is June 24. As with TDHOI, preordering will save you a couple of dollars and spare you the need to pay attention to the calendar. Preorder price structure’s the same: $7.99 ebook, $14.99 paperback, $24.99 hardcover.
David tells me I should point out that, if you buy all twelve backlist ebooks, you’ll save a total of $48—which will very nearly cover the cost of hardcovers of both TDHOI and Dead Girl Blues. And my Frequent Companion swears that this sort of reasoning has worked marvelously over the years, especially at Saks.
5. With Keller wrapped up, Luigi Garlaschelli has turned again to Matthew Scudder. Early in our association he translated all of the Scudder short stories in La Notte e la Musica, and now he has turned to the thirteenth Scudder novel, Even the Wicked. It has never appeared before in Italian; now, with La Voluntà del Popolo available in ebook and paperback form, readers in Italy (or, come to think of it, Italophones anywhere in the world) can start to catch up with Matt and Elaine and Mick and TJ and, well, l’intera banda.
Both Luigi and Sepp Leeb are now busy rendering Dead Girl Blues into Italian and German respectively. While I’d be surprised if either is good to go by June 24, readers won’t have a long wait.
6. Speaking of long waits, they seem to be one of the less consequential side effects of the pandemic, and often in areas where one wouldn’t expect it. As you may 
well be aware, I’ve been teaming up with voice artists to publish my backlist titles in audio via Audible’s ACX division. This would appear to be a virus-proof enterprise; I’m at my desk, the narrator/producers are in their home studios, and everything slithers back and forth through cyberspace just as it did in the pre-Covid days.
The hitch comes in ACX’s approval process. They have the good sense to vet audiobooks thoroughly before 
clearing them for sale, and this sometimes took a week, and occasionally a little longer. Well, P. J. Morgan and I have been waiting since April 4 for them to sign off on her excellent performance of Passport to Peril, and it was only yesterday that ACX approved the sparkling audio rendition of Threesome that Bill Weeden and Dolores McDougal turned in. (They did so on April 8, and now that it’s been approved we still have to wait for it to find 
its way into the actual sales channels.)
Meanwhile, Bill and Dolores have finished recording 3 is Not a Crowd. It’s an absolute delight, and they’ve managed the neat trick of swapping pen names (from Jill Emerson to John Warren Wells) while essentially remaining on topic. They’re on track to tackle a third pen name (Candy, by Sheldon Lord).
Theo Holland, the voice of both Evan Tanner and Ronald Rabbit, just finished work on Cinderella Sims; his next project is Sin Hellcat, a novel I wrote in collaboration with Donald E. Westlake. And P. J.Morgan is at work on another Jill Emerson title, but one very different in tone—A Madwoman’s Diary. And, while all this is going on, Barbara Nevins Taylor (whose Of Shame and Joy audiobook had a nice recent spike in sales) is busy with A 
Woman Must Love.
Audio? A wonderful medium, and these days the growthiest part of publishing. And it enables me to look as though I’m busy, while actually keeping a batch of superb voice artists genuinely busy. What’s not to like?
But wait, there’s more! More audio!
7. …Specifically, several new titles from Tantor Audio. The good people there selected Peter Berkrot to narrate Dead Girl Blues; a while back Peter voiced three of my crime novels—After the First Death, Coward’s Kiss, and You Could Call It Murder—and I can assure you he’s a perfect choice for the new book.
I know Robert Fass only from samples of some of his other audiobooks, but they inspire confidence; Tantor’s picked him for Generally Speaking and it should be a treat. I never expected anyone would want to produce an audiobook of columns from a magazine for stamp collectors, but the book seems to be drawing a readership that extends well beyond the world of philately, with ten 5-star reviews on Amazon. While you’re checking them out, you can preorder the audiobook; it’s set for May 26 release.
Finally, Tantor will be publishing an audiobook version of Hunting Buffalo With Bent Nails, my new collection of miscellaneous nonfiction. When I know the voice artist and the likely release date, I’ll let you know.
This ran longer than I anticipated, and I suspect it’s replete with errata. But I want to send it out this evening, so it may get less in the way of proofreading than it should. Well, cut an old man some slack, eh? And let me leave you with these three reminders:
—Check out the backlist ebook sale before the prices pumpkin on to $6.99.
—Preorder Dead Girl Blues and The Darkling Halls of Ivy.
Cheers,
PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.
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May 8, 2020
A Dozen Lawrence Block eBooks at a Bargain Price!
A Dozen Lawrence Block eBooks at a Bargain Price!
David Trevor here for Lawrence Block. And I’ll be brief and to the point. I suggested to the Great Man that we raise ebook prices on some of his early titles. (They’re mostly $4.99 or $5.99, and I think they all ought to be $6.99.)
“Lower them,” he said.
I’ll spare you the back and forth, but he said everybody’s in quarantine and times are uncertain, and yes the books should be priced at $6.99, but for now CUT the prices to $2.99 a book, and let all our friends know, and then a week from now after we’ve given you guys a chance to stock up at a low price, THEN boost everything to $6.99.
I asked him how many titles, and which ones, and for how long. Just in Amazon? Or other platforms as well?
“I don’t care,” he said. “You decide.”
Here’s what I decided. First of all, we’re just making the change on Amazon, because it’s too complicated moving prices around on the other platforms. So if you don’t have a Kindle or a Kindle app on your phone or toaster, I’m sorry, but this won’t work for you.
Second, I picked a dozen titles. Three are from the Collection of Classic Erotica, two are John Warren Wells titles, five are by Jill Emerson, and two are from the Classic Crime Library. Besides all being by The Master Himself, they have one other thing in common. I’ll tell you in a minute.
Before I do, let me go through the list and describe the books—although you’ll get a better description (and occasionally some information on how the book came to be written) on each book’s Amazon product page.
The three entries from the Collection of Classic Erotica are Of Shame and Joy, 21 Gay Street, and The Adulterers. The former is set in Provincetown, Massachustetts, at the eastern edge of Cape Cod, and concerns two women, Sheila and Madelaine, and—as an Amazon reviewer notes—“the paths of the two women cross–and cross 
again. Well written, with a good narrative flow, the story is more upbeat than many demimonde tales of the time.”
21 Gay Street takes place at that address in Greenwich Village, with the various tenants of the townhouse serving as the book’s characters, and very much of its time. From an Amazon review: “There’s a smoky jazz club full of junkies, one-night flings in a fog of marijuana, and an orgy fueled by aphrodisiacs and bongo drums. But there’s workaday normality and an all-too-human struggle for simple happiness.Well written, with an easy flow, the book succeeds in being 
what it was meant to be–pulp sleaze, light on plot and heavy on erotic description.”
The Adulterers is set in a Mexican border town, and the book description on the Amazon page discusses LB’s research, if you want to call it that. Here’s what one reader had to say: “Great example of the explicit dime store novels. The pulpy writing really pops off the page, and even if some of the conclusions are amusing to a modern reader, you need to take this book as a relic of its time. As that, it’s awesome.”
John Warren Wells is the name LB used for his nonfiction 
books on sexual behavior, and some of the case histories are more fact-based than others, and I’m not convinced his memory is up to the task of sorting them out. Of Wide Open: New Modes of Marriage, one reviewer writes “This is a series of interviews and observations and case stories of many couples and other groups of people living in non-monogamous relationships in the 1970s. It includes promiscuity and swinging and open marriage and triads and group marriages. It is a must read for those interested in this subject.” Another adds “Pretty good read. Wish I could get my wife to read it, but she is not open to anything.” Hey, my sympathies, dude.
3 is Not a Crowd is specifically about threesomes, or throuples, or whatever you want to call it. Here’s an Amazon rave from a reader in the UK: “I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book as it’s different from other Block books. It’s excellent, the participants are very revealing in what they are discussing and make for an interesting read.”
The first three Jill Emerson titles, Shadows, Warm & Willing, and Enough of Sorrow, are all sensitive novels of the lesbian experience. Thirty is a change 
of pace, written when sexual candor was beginning to emerge in contenporary fiction; it’s in diary form, and documents a trapped housewife’s flight from the suburbs to fulfill her erotic destiny. Or, you know, something like that.
Threesome is one LB describes as a tour de force, and was evidently great fun to write; premise is the two women and one man of the title decide to aim at the bestseller list by writing up their own history as a novel, and the story evolves in the course of their telling it. There’s a wonderful long review on the Amazon site and you ought to go there and read it yourself, but here’s one paragraph of it: “I 
count twenty-five passages that I underlined on my Kindle while reading. Some because they were laugh-out-loud funny, some because of clever wording, and some because they were insightful. Yes, I said insightful, and I meant it. It feels really odd (embarrassing?) to admit that one of my most highlighted books on my Kindle is an erotic pulp novel, but there you are. The funny is what surprised me the most. Threesome is downright hilarious, not because of the subject matter, but because of how witty Block is. His writing style is wonderful.”
That’s ten. The other two are in LB’s Classic Crime Library, although the first—Four Lives at the Crossroads—was originally included in the erotica collection. First published by Nightstand Books in 1962 under LB’s Andrew Shaw pen name, it’s a multiple-viewpoint heist novel that’s been well received now as crime fiction. From a five-star review: “The characters are well drawn and believable, the premises are not outlandish and the book is literally a page turner. I stayed up very late reading this one and immediately ordered another in the series. If you’re an LB fan and you like your stories on the hard-boiled side, treat yourself to this one!”
Ariel is harder to categorize. It’s sometimes listed as horror fiction, sometimes as crime. The setting is Charleston, and the title character is a prepubescent adopted girl who composes weird melodies on her flute. “By sublimely manipulating characters and plot elements,” one reviewer notes, “Block has created a very disturbing story of a family’s journey into darkness, fear and suspicion.” Another adds, “There is a certain disturbing quality to Ariel, which may be interpreted as teenage angst or a supernatural involvement. One can read the book as a psychological thriller or a spooky ghost story. Both work.“
That’s really all I got. Twelve books, each excellent in its own way. That’s their chief common denominator, but there’s 
another reason I happened to pick them over other equally fine backlist titles, and that’s because they’re all also available in audio, in all but one case because LB chose to self-publish them via Audible’s ACX division. We can’t give you special pricing on the audio because ACX sets their own prices, based strictly on length, but I can definitely recommend any or all of these if (as the Big Guy likes to say) you’d prefer to give your eyes a rest and read with your ears.
I’ve got the room here, so let me mention the narrators. Barbara Nevins Taylor has voiced Of Shame and Joy, and is at work now on A Woman Must Love. Dana Roth narrated 21 Gay Street. Theo Holland, whom you may know as the Voice of Evan Tanner, is the narrator of The Adulterers and Four Lives at the Crossroads. The late (and sorely missed) Don Sobczak narrated Wide Open:New Modes of Marriage, as well as the Ehrengraf stories, Defender of the Innocent.
P. J. Morgan has recorded Shadows, and we’re waiting for her audio of Passport to Peril to be cleared for sale; meanwhile, she’s returned to Jill Emerson for A Madwoman’s Diary. Emily Beresford voiced three Jill Emerson titles: Warm & Willing, Enough of Sorrow, and Thirty. And the team of Bill Weeden and Dolores McDougal have brought the three narrators of Threesome very much to life; that book, too, is awaiting ACX clearance, while Bill and Dolores have changed LB pen names if not topics and are at work on 3 is Not a Crowd.
Ariel is the one book of the twelve that we didn’t self-publish in audio—because Recorded Books beat us to it. Their audiobook is narrated by Alexandra O’Karma; I didn’t know anything about her and just this minute Googled her, and am thoroughly bummed to learn that she died in September, 2019.
If I get a chance, maybe I’ll download Ariel and see what she did with it.
This seems awfully long for a newsletter just pointing you at a dozen ebooks at a bargain price of $2.99 apiece. I can guarantee we’ll hold that price point until May 15. Then they’ll edge up a little, probably to $6.99. In the meantime, the more you buy, the more you save. Isn’t that the only logical way to look at it?
Cheers,
David Trevor sitting in for
PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you yourself have received the newsletter from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.
April 16, 2020
Terry Zobeck’s bibliography gets a WaPo rave!
Here’s what Michael Dirda had to say in this morning’s Washington Post about A Trawl Among the Shelves, Terry Zobeck’s exhaustive (not to say exhausting) bibliography of my work:
[image error]“One could make a similar claim”—that it’s indispensible, and lots of fun—“for Terry Zobeck’s compulsively readable A Trawl Among the Shelves: Lawrence Block Bibliography, 1958-2020. Among the grandest and most masterly of the Mystery Writers of America’s Grandmasters, Block is best known for his Matt Scudder novels, about a recovering alcoholic ex-cop turned private investigator, and for the Bernie Rhodenbarr capers, featuring a bookseller who is actually a professional burglar. Yet those series comprise only a small number of the writer’s 200 or so books.
“Over a 60-year career, Block has basically done it all, from soft-core erotica as Sheldon Lord to nonfiction about coin and stamp collecting to several chatty but valuable how-to manuals for would-be writers. He’s also assembled imaginative original anthologies, most recently From Sea to Stormy Sea: 17 Stories Inspired by Great American Paintings. To round out Zobeck’s bibliographic labor of love Block himself contributes a characteristically genial afterword, ‘The Man Who Wrote Too Much.’”
Terry, who’d been a casual acquaintance for years, a frequent attendee at signings and mystery conferences, became a friend during the development of this book. The hares he started led me to track down long-lost work and remember early efforts I hadn’t thought of in decades. His inquiries and discoveries prompted me to develop two books I’d put off for far too long—a collection of miscellaneous nonfiction pieces (Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails) and a complete edition of my columns for Linn’s Stamp News (Generally Speaking). That both books have been well received, and are available in hardbound and paperback editions as well as ebooks, is a source of considerable satisfaction to me—and I might never have done the work but for the stimulus Terry provided.
Terry has published A Trawl Among the Shelves himself. (I was able to steer him to the incomparable Jaye Manus, my Goddess of Design and Production, who gets all credit for the book’s excellent, um, design and production.) It was a labor of love for Terry—no one puts in thousands of hours on the bibliography of an oblivion-bound scribbler in the expectation of financial reward—but the book’s reception has been such that I’m hopeful he’ll get some sort of return on his labor.
If you’ve enough interest in me and my work to visit this website, you’re part of this book’s natural audience. So why don’t you click here and buy it?
April 7, 2020
Settling In and Hunkering Down
I won’t pretend it’s what I’m in the mood for. But, self-quarantined or not, I’m fortunate enough to be able to go on doing what I do, and activity seems to suit me better than its opposite. Some of the time, anyway.
And I’ve got books out, and others in the works, and some of y’all might find some of it absorbing, so whose interest does it serve if I seek out a bushel and hide my light under it?
I guess I know what you mean.
[image error]Really? In that case let me shine a little of that light on my latest release, The Burglar in Short Order. It’s the 12th book about the lighthearted and lightfingered Bernie Rhodenbarr, and it went on sale one month ago and has, as they say, exceeded all expectations. While the Subterranean Press limited and trade editions were quick to sell out, it’s available now in several forms: as an ebook, a trade paperback, a library-binding hardcover, or an unabridged audiobook, this last narrated by that endearing Voice of Bernie, the superb Richard Ferrone.
In addition to selling briskly, TBISO has been giving a powerful boost to the eleven Burglar books that preceded it. That’s most evident to me with The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons, one of my first ventures in self-publishing back in 2013, but all of the books in the series show an uptick in sales, and that suggests that The Burglar in Short Order is drawing new readers, and that they like what they see.
And what all of them want to know is when you’ll write another book about Bernie.
It’s a question I do hear from time to time. You know, Bernie gives us his own answer in the last item in the book, “A Burglar’s Future.” According to him, he’s done. Game over. Nada mas. Finito.
Maybe he’s wrong.
Wouldn’t that be nice? But I’m not counting on it, and neither should you. Meanwhile, all the way on the other 
end of the spectrum from the affable bookselling burglar, here’s a novel so dark and disturbing it comes with its own warning label, as you may read for yourself on the book’s product page.
There’s a product page?
There is indeed, because the ebook of Dead Girl Blues is now available for preorder.
Just the ebook?
No, there’s just been a change—you can now preorder the paperback as well. There’ll also be a library binding hardcover, and I’m thrilled to announce that Tantor Audio will be bringing out an unabridged audio edition.
I’ve only shown the manuscript to a handful of people, heavy hitters all, and their reactions have led me to wonder if Dead Girl Blues might have more impact than I’d expected. I won’t repeat the quotes here, you can find them on that same product page, but I can’t keep from sharing this most recent bouquet from Barry N. Malzberg:
“This is an astonishing novel, the most profound examination and evisceration of identity which I have encountered in decades. A stunning and terminally unsettling work, written in a style so accessible, so controlled, so utterly reasonable, that the reader as witness can only fall and fall into the cauldron of memory into some alteration neither ordained nor random but a terrible fusion of both.”
He makes it sound…important.
He does, doesn’t he? FWIW, I do know that some readers think DGB might be my best book. I know too that my German and Italian translators responded very enthusiastically, and are already busy converting my sentences into the tongues of Goethe and Dante, two fellows with whom I rarely manage to get in the same paragraph. And Richard Heinrich, who’s already narrated and produced Hörbucher of the first two Matthew Scudder novels—Die Sünden der Väter and Drei am Haken—is wrapping up #3 (Mitten im Tod) so he’ll be ready to voice Dead Girl Blues as soon as the translation’s in hand.
As i said, the ebook is open for preorders at Amazon and at these other platforms as well. The preorder price is $7.99; after the book’s release on June 24, I’ll bump that sum up two bucks to $9.99.
You can double your savings, I might add, by preordering the ebook edition of The Darkling Halls of Ivy, a new anthology coming May 31 in limited 
hardcover form from Subterranean Press. Just go to the product page for a list of contributors and the starred Publishers Weekly review; I won’t include that here not out of false modesty (which is the only kind I have) but to save space. Preorder price for the ebook is $7.99; price after May 31 is $9.99. (And yes, there’ll be a paperback and a library-binding hardcover down the line, but they’re not yet preorderable.)
What I want is the Subterranean Press signed limited. Their books are always gorgeous and well-made. Please tell me it hasn’t sold out yet.
You’re in luck, although I suspect it’ll be fully subscribed well before publication, as that’s what usually happens. The limited edition is offered on the Amazon page—but I strongly advise against buying it there. Amazon’s brilliant at most things, but not at dealing with small presses and limited printings, and if you order this book from them it’s entirely possible they’ll wind up unable to fill your order. That’s happened before, with At Home in the Dark, and a lot of collectors were disappointed. So if you want the Subterranean hardcover of TDHOI, for heaven’s sake click here. It’s the same $50 as it is from Amazon, and if Subterranean confirms your order, you can rest assured you’ll receive the book.
You look unhappy. Was it something I said?
Don’t get me wrong, I like preorders. But I just wish there was something I could buy now.
Well, today’s your lucky day. Just days ago, Terry Zobeck published A Trawl Among the Shelves, and if that title has a familiar cadence to it, it’s not 
coincidental. It’s an annotated bibliography of my work from 1958 to the present, and Terry, for whom the word “tireless” would seem to have been invented, has somehow managed to compile over 800 individual listings. He and I were in fairly constant email contact for months, and I wound up rediscovering works I’d written and forgotten ages ago. At one point I suggested he call his book “The Man Who Wrote Too Much,” and he countered with the suggestion that I furnish an afterword for the book and hang that title on it. And so I did.
I won’t pretend that this is an item of great interest to the casual reader. If you’re a collector, of course you want this book. (And you may well have already ordered it in ebook or paperback, or both; Amazon shows it as the #1 new release in literary bibliographies, and it only went on sale a matter of days ago.) If you’re not a collector but are a sufficiently serious fan to want to know what I wrote and when I wrote it and what else I wrote that’s like it, well, you too are a part of the book’s natural audience.
I don’t want to oversell A Trawl Among the Shelves; it shouldn’t be hard for you to know that you want it or that you don’t. If you’re wavering, Kevidently’s review on Goodreads should help you make up your mind. I will point out, though, that if you want the ebook, you ought to order it before its author comes to his senses and boosts the price from a way-too-low $3.99 to at least double that figure. (The paperback is on the low side itself at $14.99. Specialized scholarly works of this sort are typically priced around $75, with the result that only libraries can comfortably afford them. Terry, a devout collector himself, wanted to make the book affordable for fellow sufferers from bibliomania.)
I already ordered the book. Ebook and paperback, because why not? I got that all taken care of just now, while you were nattering on and on.
I think you’ll be pleased.
###
And that’s right where this newsletter was supposed to end—a little of this and a little of that, and maybe some news about audio (which I’ll now have to hold for another newsletter).
Because, as you all know, stuff happens.
A few days ago my very close friend of over thirty years, Jerrold Mundis, came off the ventilator that had sustained him for the past week—and died. Jerry had made his living as a writer for well over half a century. He wrote the most useful book on writer’s block I’ve ever encountered, and his books on debt and 
underearning, from a Debtors Anonymous perspective, have established themselves among the leaders in their field.
If in recent years Jerry has been primarily a presence in those self-help areas, his heart lay in the world of fiction where he first made his mark. As he came to point out himself, for decades he acted as if determined to avoid building a following, doing most of his work under pen names. In later life he embraced the world of ebooks and self-publishing, rescued some fine early work from oblivion, and shared it with a world of readers.
His richly imagined novel, The Dogs, was reissued in a handsome limited edition in 2017 by Centipede Press; Jerry published it as an ebook as well. His pentalogy, the Shame & Glory Saga, dramatizes the whole panorama of African slavery in America in five powerful volumes. And The Retreat is a powerful and unremitting novel of punishment that, while sometimes hard to read, is ever so much harder to forget.
I’m not sure why I’m doing all this—listing his books, describing 
them in terms designed to render them appealing to you. It’s not as though there’s any reason to hold a fundraiser for Jerry. Not the least of his personal triumphs is that, after spending decades struggling with drink and drugs and debt, he died with as many decades of sobriety and solvency to his credit. We don’t need to take up a collection for him, nor would any effort I might make in this newsletter amount to much in royalties.
But he was a writer, and a fine one, and it strikes me as fitting to remember him for it in the only way one can properly remember a writer—by reading what he elected to spend his life writing.
There are many more books and stories besides the ones I’ve singled out here. You might want to visit his website for a fuller picture of his life’s work.
I’ll miss him.
March 17, 2020
1—Preorder DEAD GIRL BLUES! 2—Sign Up for a Free Home Seminar! 3—Read/Listen Past the Pandemic!
All those exclamation points.
I know. I’ve been reading too many comic books. But I’m excited, and it’s hard for me to contain myself.
The big news is that my new novel, Dead Girl Blues, is now available for preorder. I thought I’d have to wait until 90 days before the release date, but it turned out I was misinformed.
Like Whatsisname in Whatchamacallit. He said he came for the waters.
Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Never mind. You still have to wait until June 24th to read the book, but you can place your ebook order now—at Amazon Barnes & Noble Apple Kobo Tolino/Thalia.
Why pay now for something I won’t get until June 24th?
That’s not what happens. They don’t charge you until they deliver the book.
Oh. I didn’t know that. Still, what’s the advantage of placing the order now?
Well, it means you won’t have to tie a string around your finger. No little reminders popping up in your Google Calendar. You’ll get the book as soon as it’s released.
It’s true that I’ve already got more than enough to keep track of.
You and everybody else. And, just to reward you for doing the prudent thing, you get the ebook for $7.99. The day it’s published, the price skyrockets to $9.99.
That’s still pretty reasonable. But if I can save two dollars—
Exactly.
You’re not just publishing ebooks of this one, are you? Won’t you be doing a paperback? Or maybe a hardcover?
How about both? A paperback and a library-binding hardcover, the latter an edition the printer calls Case Laminate. We’ve done several books that way—Generally Speaking, Hunting Buffalo, and The Burglar in Short Order—and people seem to like them.
So when can I preorder a Case Laminate edition of Dead Girl Blues?
Soon, I hope. But for now only the ebook is preorderable. Don’t ask me why.
Why not? I’m sorry. Oh, I’m just all confused. I don’t want to miss the book, but I might decide I want the hardbound one, the whatchamacallit—
Case Laminate.
Right. But I don’t think I want them both, and if I order the one and then change my mind and decide I want to order the other—
You can cancel your preorder for the ebook. A simple mouse click and you’re off the hook. But even if you don’t want the ebook under any circumstances, may I suggest you click the Amazon link and go to the Dead Girl Blues page?
Whatever for?
To read the product description. It’s designed to get you to buy the book, of course. But it’s also designed to prevent you from buying the book.
Why on earth would you want to do that?
Because some of y’all won’t like it. A whole lot of top publishers declined to make offers for Dead Girl Blues, and I can see where they’re coming from. So I’ve tried to make sure that readers are forewarned.
OTOH, the product description includes unqualified raves from a couple of very heavy hitters, writers whose endorsement may lead you to click that preorder button.
You’re not going to tell us their names?
You’ll have to look for yourselves.
But shall we move on? You may remember I arranged to conduct a workshop Tuesday and Thursday evenings in April at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. Well, that was before the virus went viral, so to speak. I pulled the plug on it, then thought of a way to offer it from a distance, and at no charge to participants. I don’t want to waste space on it here, but if you’re curious just check out this thread of tweets, and if that doesn’t kill your interest, email me as indicated. No, it’s not like sitting down with the group—but when social distancing is the buzzword du jour, that’s as much a plus as a minus. And, you know, the price point of $0.00 is a definite attraction.
Hard to argue with you on that one.
And now to #3. You can’t leave the house, the last thing you want is company, and they keep breaking into your 
TV programs with news you’d rather not hear. So what’s the answer?
Books to read and audiobooks to listen to, I’d say, and you probably worked that out on your own, but maybe I can urge something of mine upon you. I certainly ought to mention that Michael Bonner, whose voicing of Step By Step and The Liar’s Bible has delighted so many of you, has now come through with another of my books for writers, The Liar’s Companion.
Another recent audiobook, and one that’s been having a nice spurt in sales, is Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man, which Isaac Asimov called “either the funniest dirty book or the dirtiest funny book ever.” Theo Holland makes it a genuine treat for your ears—and whatever other body parts choose to get involved.
And what other books would I recommend for the self-quarantined among you? Well, if you want to stay on topic, there’s Albert Camus and Daniel Defoe and Giovanni Boccaccio and Jack London—and of course Stephen King.
Maybe, though, you’d be a lot happier changing the subject. You might welcome the chance to match wits with Bernie Rhodenbarr, test your limits with Susan Pomerance, flirt very carefully with Kit Tolliver, or take a long walk with Guthrie and Sara and their friends. Who knows where it might lead you?
Indeed, who knows where anything might lead any of us? I wish you a pleasant journey, even if you never leave your house, and a good measure of joy along the way.
February 26, 2020
A little of this and a little of that…
Well, that’s vague.
I suppose it is. But I’d rather think of it as inclusive. I have a batch of topics to expound upon, and their only common denominator is, um, my humble self.
So here you have it, a little of this and a little of that, numbered to provide the illusion of order. Which leads us to—
1. The Burglar in Short Order. “What a treat!” Booklist rejoiced. “Catnip to Bernie disciples!” You can 
read a full description on the Amazon product page, and while you’re at it you can pre-order the ebook before its March 2 release and save a dollar. (The price goes up to $6.99 on publication day.)
You can also pre-order the audiobook, narrated by the Voice of Bernie Rhodenbarr, Richard Ferrone. The Subterranean Press trade hardcover will probably be sold out by the time it goes to press, but as of this moment you can still pre-order it.
And, as of today, you can finally pre-order our paperback edition. Like the ebook, its on-sale date is the 2nd of March. And there’ll be a library-binding edition, too, but you can’t order that one yet—although this may have changed between my writing these lines and your reading them. I know, all these options can be confusing, but I figure you’ll be able to get it all sorted out.
It’s a good thing your readers are resourceful.
They’d have to be, wouldn’t they? I’ve noticed, too, that they’re significantly brighter and better looking than average. But let’s move along…
2. Anthologies. If, as Dr. Johnson has told us, patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, then surely anthologism is the last resort of the washed-up writer. It allows me to maintain my professional status without actually having to write anything. And I have to say it has its rewards.
I published two anthologies last year, From Sea to Stormy Sea (Pegasus) and At Home in the Dark (Subterranean) and both of them had me beaming with pride this past week, when three outstanding 
stories were selected for the upcoming volume of Otto Penzler’s Best American Mystery Stories, arguably the most prestigious annual collection in the field. Tom Franklin‘s “On Little Terry Road” and John Sandford‘s “Girl With an Ax,” both from FSTSS, got the nod from editor C J Box, as did Wallace Stroby‘s Crissa Stone story for AHITD, “Nightbound.”
Now I can’t promise you’ll be getting a preview of next year’s BAMS, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one or more of the stories in The Darkling Halls of Ivy makes the cut. Look at the list of contributors: David Morrell, Reed Farrel Coleman, Jane Hamilton, Warren Moore, David Levien, Jor R.Lansdale, A J Hartley, Ian Rankin,Tom Straw, Xu Xi, Peter Lovesey, Owen King, Gar Anthony Haywood, Nicholas Christopher, Jill D. Block, John Lescroart, Seanan McGuire, and Tod Goldberg.
Wow.
Exactly. Sometime in May, Subterranean Press will publish a 500-copy hardcover limited edition. You can pre-order now, and I’d recommend it, as their limited editions tend to be fully subscribed well in advance of publication. (They won’t be offering a hardcover trade edition, just the limited.) I’ll be doing an ebook and paperback.
And you’ll let us know when they’re available?
Count on it. For now, though, let’s move on to…
3. Audio. And more good news—audio rights to both of the books I published late last year have been acquired 
by Tantor Audio. Generally Speaking, which collects all 33 of the columns I wrote for Linn’s Stamp News, along with half a dozen stamp-oriented excerpts from Keller novels, has been moving nicely and picking up a string of heartening 5-star reviews.
The consensus seems to be that, while the book’s irresistible to stamp collectors, you don’t have to have a philatelic bone in your body to find Generally Speaking absorbing and enjoyable. (Amazon gives it a high ranking in the Historical Essays category.) Similarly, you don’t need to be quite as obsessive-compulsive as its author to enjoy Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails.
But it wouldn’t hurt.
You may be right. Still, I’m absolutely delighted both books will soon be available in audio. The hardcover and paperback versions of Generally Speaking have been outselling the ebook by a wide margin, which suggests to me that stamp collectors are happiest with something that’s physically collectible.
So what do they want with audio?
They can listen to it while they’re working with their stamps. A pair of tongs in one hand, a magnifier in the other, and something engagingly philatelic to listen to—really, what could be more appropriate?
And folks can listen to Hunting Buffalo while they’re stuck in their cars, driving around the back roads of America, lost and hungry and tired…
There you go. Sounds good to me. And if the audiobook ends while they’ve still got miles of blue highway in front of them, I’ve got other things they can listen to.
For instance, here’s UK reviewer Colman Keane on Ronald Rabbit is a Dirty Old Man: “As per usual I mostly listened to this one on the commute to work. I was tickled pink and laughed like a drain and may have attracted some strange looks from fellow motorists stuck in traffic around me. A real mood lifter and fun piece of writing.”
Click here to read all of Col’s insightful review. “As ever,” he concludes, “Theo Holland‘s narration is pitch perfect.” Col won’t get an argument from me on that point. Ronald Rabbit is the tenth book of mine that Theo has voiced, and he’s at work now on an eleventh—Cinderella Sims, an 
early book reborn in the Classic Crime Library. It’ll be a while before the audiobook is good to go, but my Goddess of Design and Production has already prepared the cover—and isn’t it pretty?
My very first novel, Shadows, concerned a young woman’s sexual-identity crisis in late-1950s Greenwich Village. PJ Morgan voiced the audiobook, and audible.com just posted Peachfront’s 4+-star review: “The narration is great, and the description of the angst and 
attitudes of the time feel pretty true to life.” Nice—and it helps offset this earlier one by Anita: “Ugh! So disappointed!”
I should tell you that it was my story that disappointed Anita, not PJ’s narration. PJ has now turned to another early book of mine, Passport to Peril, a novel of romantic suspense in which young American folksinger Linda Cameron gets caught up in a tangled web of espionage in the west of Ireland. The original publisher, Lancer Books, billed it as in the tradition of Helen MacInnes, and my byline read Anne Campbell Clark, a name I always felt had a nice ring to it, 
albeit one I never had occasion to use again. Maybe Anita will like this one better. For my part, I’m eager to hear what PJ does with it. I’ll let you know when it’s available.
You may already know Michael Bonner’s work, speaking in my voice to bring Step By Step and The Liar’s Bible to life. (Or should I say to sound? Words on a page are alive, aren’t they? Well, not all of them, I suppose, and it may depend who writes them, but…oh, never mind.)
Whatever you call it, Michael’s done commendable work—and he shows no signs of slowing down. He’s just wrapped up The Liar’s Companion, and we’re both waiting for it to make its way through ACX’s labyrinthine approval process. That’s actually not a bad thing, helping to assure the technical quality of self-published audio, and Companion should be on the sales racks at Amazon and Audible in a week or two.
Ever since I began self-publishing audiobooks, I’ve wanted to issue Threesome. It’s the fifth Jill Emerson book, and something of a tour de force; the three titular protagonists, if you will, have decided to write in alternating chapters an autobiographical novel of their relationship. I don’t think I ever had more fun writing anything, and it’s evidently served up a good time to 
readers over the years, but how could I make it happen in audio? It absolutely has to have a male voice for Harry’s chapters and female voices for Rhoda and Priss.
Problem solved! The team of Dolores McDougal and Bill Weeden have risen to the occasion, and before too long their voices (well, two of hers and one of his) will make it very clear to all of y’all that three is not a crowd. (Which, as it happens, is the title of yet another book of mine. Never mind.) Threesome may be a while coming, but you’ll note that we already have the cover.
That’s a lot of audio. Are you aiming to bring out audio editions of all your books?
I hope so. It’s a wonderful medium—and I speak as one who’s not much of a listener myself. But I’ve watched the world of audio develop from abridgements on cassette sold primarily in truck stops to today’s boom time of unabridged downloadable audio.
You’d call it a boom time, would you?
I think that’s a fair description, and—
Would that be a sonic boom?
Ugh, as Anita might put it. I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that, and we’ll move right along. To a birthday present I’ll be giving myself a few months from now on the 24th of June:
4. Dead Girl Blues. I honestly thought I was done with the writing of novels. It’s been a few years since I last forced upon the world what the poet Randall Jarrell defined as “a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it.” More recently I’ve written novellas and short stories, and they certainly had enough wrong with them to fit Jarrell’s formulation, but they didn’t have the length.
I figured that was okay. When you’re too old to buy green bananas, it’s probably time to leave novel-writing to younger and more energetic writers.
Go know.
Sometime in the fall of 2018 I sat down and wrote the opening of a short story. It grew some, and figured to wind up somewhere in the novelette/novella range. Maybe twelve or fifteen thousand words. Maybe as much as twenty thousand.
There was a point when i put it aside, as one sometimes does, and another point where I decided I would probably not go back to it, because I wasn’t sure I liked it enough to go on. And then one day I took the time to read over what I written, and decided I liked it after all. So I wrote a little more, and then I began sitting down to it for an hour or so every morning, and by the time I was done with it and it with me, the creature had somehow grown to a length of 52,000 words.
That’s a novel.
You bet it is. It’s not a long novel, but it’s a novel. A prose narrative of some length, for sure. And God knows it’s got plenty wrong with it.
But, see, I like it.
Even so, I can see why the publishers my agent showed it to were not eager to pay a high price for it. I don’t think it’s terribly commercial. And there are elements that will put off a lot of readers.
Oh, come on.Your readers have been through a lot with you. How are you going to put them off now?
It’s a first-person narrative, the journal of the lead character. In the first chapter, he tells how he picked up a woman at a roadhouse and raped her and killed her.
Oh. Well, I suppose some particularly sensitive souls might find that upsetting. Rapes her and kills her?
And, um, not in that order.
Oh.
But, see, this is a book that doesn’t owe me a thing. I hadn’t planned to write it, so it doesn’t have to bring in money to justify the time I spent on it. Dead Girl Blues is its own justification. I’ll publish it myself, on my 82nd birthday, and all of y’all can buy it or not buy it, read it or not read it, and like it or not like it.
Because you like it, and that’s what counts.
It’s not the only thing that counts, but yeah, it does. And I’m not the only person who likes it. I’ve shown it to some friends whose opinions I trust, and they told me that Dead Girl Blues is one of the very best things I’ve ever written. And then they added that they could see where it might have problems.
So come June 24th, after a month or two on pre-order, I’ll bring out Dead Girl Blues in ebook and paperback and hardcover, and I hope you like it.
But it’s fine with you if we don’t, right?
It pretty much has to be. I read it over last week before I sent it to my aforementioned Goddess, along with some notes on cover design, and I realized DGB was exactly the book I wanted it to be. And how often does 
that happen? And what more could an old man possibly ask for?
And that, I’m afraid, is going to have to be it for now. I’d planned to include some news about Spanish and Italian translations, but it’ll keep; I’d rather give the subject adequate space in a future newsletter than short shrift in this one.
Two things, before you or I forget: (1) If you want the ebook of The Burglar in Short Order, click on it and pre-order it now. You’ll save a buck and make sure your order is one of the first filled. (2) If you’ve been considering “A Time and a Place for Writing,” my Tuesdays-and-Thursdays workshop at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, you should know that enrollments have passed the minimum threshold, which means the class is a definite go—and that there were still a few slots open when last I checked.
Cheers,
