THE ADVENTURES OF EVAN TANNER

Tanner lost the ability to sleep when he was wounded in Korea. He’s been awake ever since---learning languages, writing term papers and theses for lazy scholars, and supporting political lost causes and national splinter groups and irridentist movements. I wrote seven books about him in the late sixties---and an eighth just in time for the millennium.

1

THE THIEF WHO COULDN'T SLEEP. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1966. Tanner goes to Balekesir, in Turkey, chasing a hoard of gold coins stashed at the time of the Armenian genocide. Currently available as a Signet mass-market paperback: I have a few copies left of the first hardcover edition published by Otto Penzler in 1995.

2

THE CANCELED CZECH. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1966. Tanner goes to Prague to rescue a Slovak Nazi war criminal. Currently available as a Signet mass-market paperback: Again, I have a few copies left of the first hardcover edition published by Otto Penzler in 1995.

3

TANNER'S TWELVE SWINGERS. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1967. Tanner liberates the Latvian women's gymnastic team, and I wanted to call the book The Lettish Tomatoes. Oh, well. This is the book where he meets Minna and brings her home from Lithuania. Currently available as a Signet mass-market paperback.

4

THE SCORELESS THAI. Subterranean Press, 2001. Originally published as TWO FOR TANNER by Fawcett Gold Medal, 1968. Tanner meets up with a Siamese fellow who has no luck with women. I never could figure out why they called it Two for Tanner.

5

TANNER'S TIGER. Subterranean Press, 2001. First hardcover edition. Tanner plays hopscotch with international borders, but in this book he can't get into Canada. Somehow he manages, and takes Minna to Expo. True first printing: Fawcett Gold Medal paperback, 1968.

6

HERE COMES A HERO. Fawcett Gold Medal, 1968. I don't know who came up with the title, or why. Set in Afghanistan, with Tanner rescuing an old girlfriend who's been abducted by white slavers. The No Exit edition is the only one presently available.

7

ME TANNER, YOU JANE. MacMillan, 1970. The first in the series to be published in hardcover. Set in Africa, in the newly independent nation of Modonoland. The No Exit edition is the only one presently available.

8

TANNER ON ICE. Dutton, 1998. Tanner's back, after a quarter of a century in a frozen-food locker in a sub-basement in Union City, New Jersey. (Hey, everybody's got to be someplace.) The book's a true cross-cultural experience, written in the West of Ireland and set in Burma. Currently available as a Signet mass-market paperback. I can supply autographed copies of the hardcover first edition.

What’s next for Tanner? I don’t honestly know, but I certainly hope I don’t wait another 28 years before writing about him again. I’m thinking about Tanner Down Under---the possibilities are intriguing. We’ll see.

And we’ll see, too, what kind of reception Subterranean Press’s hardcover edition of TWO FOR TANNER receives; if it goes over well, all the other titles will get similar treatment.