Looking Forward to 2024!

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year! Thank you for being a subscriber to my newsletter! Your continued interest and support are greatly appreciated!

Can you believe 2024 is already here? It’s going to be a big one for fans of Perfect Shot and the Alex Martel thriller series, and I’m so excited about everything that’s coming this year!

Perfect Shot launched on November 14, 2023, and the response has been fantastic! In Canada, it debuted as an Indigo Bestseller (photo below left). It’s available from coast to coast in the United States and Canada. And it’s even available in most Costco stores north of the border (photo below right)!

As of December, it’s also been for sale in the United Kingdom and will be for sale in Australia by the middle of February.

Readers have sent photos from all corners of the globe, from the Northwest Territories and Vancouver Island to the California coast and as far away as Marrakesh, Morocco, and Perth, Australia, showing me the book on bookstore shelves and in places far and wide, making Perfect Shot a truly international thriller.

Perfect Shot has been seen in the cockpits of helicopters and airliners and in police cars, fire stations, military bases, and hospital emergency departments. I am so grateful to everyone that snapped a photo and posted it to social media or DM’d it to me.

And, of course, I’d be nowhere without the kind and generous support of other writers who walked this path before me. Thank you to Simon Gervais, Jack Carr, Marc Cameron, Mark Greaney, Robert Dugoni, and so many others for giving of their time and talents to help get the word out!

Book 2 Title Reveal

But I know why you’re really here. You’re wondering what the title of my next book is. So, without further ado…

Book 2 in the Alex Martel thriller series is called…

Out in the Cold.

What do you think? Personally, I love it, and I hope you do, too! It’s a fitting title, but of course, you won’t know that until you’ve had a chance to read it. Out in the Cold will be published on November 12, 2024, but you can pre-order it today!

The countdown is on!

What’s it about, you ask? Well, here’s the short blurb:

Special Agent Alex Martel is thrown back into a deadly world of deception when a series of attacks threaten to incite World War III in this action-packed thriller.

Some of you might recall that last spring, my wife and I visited a few places in Europe, including Helsinki, Finland—a place arguably at the center of ongoing political intrigue involving a couple of the world’s superpowers and a little northern alliance called NATO.

Helsinki is beautiful. It has a remarkable history, and its geography very much reminded us of our home in Ontario, Canada. I am so glad we went—it factors prominently in the pages of Out in the Cold!

Pictured are Lynne and I on Suomenlinna, an 18th-century sea fortress and nature area with centuries-old artillery and defensive walls spread across six linked islands in the Gulf of Finland. (Photo: ©️ Steve Urszenyi 2023.)

We also visited many sites around Washington, DC, and toured Langley and McLean, Virginia, stopping at some well-known establishments to collect additional background information while I was researching various aspects of the story.

I don’t want to give too much away, but suffice it to say that there will be geopolitics at play and maybe a conspiracy or two within the pages of Out in the Cold!

Out in the Cold Cover

The art department of St. Martin’s Press is hard at work designing the cover and other elements of the next Alex Martel thriller, Out in the Cold. If the cover of my debut novel, Perfect Shot, is anything to go by, the cover art for the next in the series is going to be killer!

So, stay tuned… there will be a big reveal planned in the very near future!!!

Perfect Shot Mass Market Paperback!

On September 24, 2024, the mass-market paperback edition of Perfect Shot will be out in bookstores everywhere! You can already pre-order a copy from your favorite bookseller or by heading over to the Macmillan Publishing website at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250879127/perfectshot. (The algorithms love pre-orders, so if you want to help an author out, the best way is to pre-order their book. The second best way is to leave them a five-star review!)

Key Dates in 2024

Here are some dates of conferences I’ll be attending or important publication milestones and waypoints:

February 27: Perfect Shot publishes in Australia

May 24-25: The Montreal Mystery Festival

May 28 - June 1: ThrillerFest

August 28 - September 1: Bouchercon Nashville

September 24: Perfect Shot mass-market paperback pub date

November 12: Out in the Cold pub date

Books I’m Reading

Every writer is first and foremost a reader, and I’m no exception. So, what books have I recently read or are in my to-be-read (TBR) pile?

I recently reviewed Ryan Steck’s novella, Redd Christmas for The Real Book Spy website. Click on the image of the cover and take a look at what I wrote.

In short… it’s awesome!

Outlaw, by my good friend Jack Stewart, is the second installment in the Battle Born series. If you love technothrillers that read like a Tom Clancy novel, then you’re going to love everything about this series.

Jack is a former Top Gun aviator and instructor, and his novels come alive with true-to-life action like only he can write!

Landlside is the debut novel of U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Silver Star recipient, and former CIA paramilitary officer, Adam Sikes.

It is a tightly crafted geopolitical thriller that is also a gripping personal story. Its protagonist, Mason Hackett, is a character you’ll be cheering for from beginning to climactic end.

I honestly can’t say too much about The Rising Order because I have only just started it, but what I can say is that after only the first few pages, it already has me hooked!

But don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself and see what all the critics are saying… and then go buy it and read it!

News, Reviews, Interviews & Podcasts

Since the publication of Perfect Shot, I have appeared on several podcasts, including The Crew Reviews, The Poisoned Pen, Course of Action, First Chapter Fun, and the Thriller Zone. A number of reviews have been published online as well. Please take a moment and have a look when you have some time:

News, Reviews, Interviews and Podcasts

Order Perfect Shot Today!

Well, that’s it for this edition of my newsletter. Thank you for supporting and encouraging me on this journey. See you soon on social media and in my next newsletter!

Copyright (C) 2024 Steve Urszenyi Author. All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe