I know, I know. I’ll tell you, my newsletters are like buses. You wait and wait and wait and wait, and then three of them come one right after the other. But I’ve got news, and I’m bursting with it.

Innit pretty? It’s the book I mentioned late last year, the one I’d fully expected to bring out on Valentine’s Day; well, it took a little longer, but I hope you think it was worth the wait. I love the cover Jaye Manus came up with, and it’s every bit as attractive on the inside, as the same deft hand did the formatting.
In the course of a lifetime of fiction writing, I’ve done a certain amount of nonfiction as well, and in The Crime of Our Lives I’ve collected the critical pieces and trips down Memory Lane that center on the field of crime fiction. Many of my recollections of colleagues appeared in Mystery Scene; others were published in American Heritage, GQ, and the Japanese edition of Playboy. Several were commissioned as introductions. All told, chapter subjects include Edward Anderson, Fredric Brown, Raymond Chandler, Mary Higgins Clark, Joseph Conrad, Ed Gorman, Dashiell Hammett, Gar Haywood, Evan Hunter, Henry Kane, Al Nussbaum, Robert B. Parker, Edgar Allan Poe, Spider Robinson, Mickey Spillane, Ross Thomas, Jim Thompson, Donald E. Westlake, and Charles Willeford. And there’s a personal survey of the genre from its early days, and a recollection of my own early days at Scott Meredith’s bucket shop.

But here, instead of my telling you about it, let me give you a taste:

Evan Hunter: “In his mid-seventies, after a couple of heart attacks, an aneurysm, and a siege of cancer that had led to the removal of his larynx, Evan wrote Alice in Jeopardy. And went to work right away on Becca in Jeopardy, with every intention of working his way through the alphabet. Don’t you love it? Here’s a man with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, and he’s perfectly comfortable launching a twenty-six book series.”

That’s one of five pop-out quotes—the subjects of the others are Fredric Brown, Raymond Chandler, Donald Westlake and Charles Willeford—and I invite you check them all out. They’re all to be found in the book descriptions at Amazon, Nook, Inktera and Scribd, where the TCOOL ebook is already on sale. (It’ll be eVailable as well at Kobo and iTunes, probably within a day or two.)

Okay, I’ll take a few questions.

You’re calling it TCOOL because those are the initials, right? Same as you refer to A Walk Among the Tombstones as AWATT. But what’s that hyphen doing in the headline?

Well, that’s how we found ourselves pronouncing it. And with the hyphen it becomes T-Cool, whom I think of as a clueless white rap artist who never really got anywhere. Gosh, I hope there’s another question—

I get that you’ve published it yourself, and I applaud your industry and enterprise—

Let’s not forget avarice.

—but does that mean it’ll only be obtainable as an ebook? I love ebooks, and I’ll download it and enjoy reading it in that form, but this is the kind of volume I like to have on the shelf as well.

Oh, I do like your thinking. And I’m happy to report that in a matter of days TCOOL will be on sale as a trade paperback. I just ordered a proof copy earlier today, and as soon as I check it and voice my approval, the presses will roll.

That’s welcome news.

And it’s only the beginning, because in a very short time you’ll have the option of owning TCOOL in a splendid hardcover first edition, complete with dust jacket.

Ooh, I want one! How do I get it?

From Amazon for sure, and from other online booksellers as well. Select brick-and-mortar stores will have the book, too.

You know, what I really really want is a signed copy. But I suppose that’s out of the question.

Oh, is that what you think? We’ll have signed copies for sale in LB’s eBay Bookstore, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a number of mystery specialty booksellers have them, too. I’ll be at The Mysterious Bookshop May 7 in aid of Dark City Lights, my new Three Rooms Press anthology, and I expect we’ll have copies as well of TCOOL, in both hardcover and paperback. I’ll let you know more closer to the date.

Do you want to tell us the prices?

Sure, why not? The ebook’s $9.99, the trade paperback’s $16.99, and the hardcover’s $24.99.

That seems quite reasonable.

You think? I’d call it a steal. But for now why don’t you click on one of those links—here they are again, for convenience—Amazon, Nook, Inktera and Scribd. Read the book description and see if it moves you to click on the Buy button.

And, before I forget, this Sunday, March 29, I’ll be on John McMullen’s radio program, The johnmac Radio Show, at 7pm eastern time. The call-in number is 646-716-9756. You can ask me anything, but I’ll warn you right now, I’m not as good as I used to be on State Capitals. For that there’s Google.

Cheers,

PS: As always, please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might find it of interest. And, if you’ve received the newsletter in that fashion from a friend and would like your own subscription, that’s easily arranged; a blank email to lawbloc@gmail.com with Newsletter in the subject line will get the job done.
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