I know it's been a little quiet around here lately, news-wise. So plug your ears, folks. I'm about to strike up the band. There's so much to trumpet I can't even get to it all into one post.
The cavalcade kicked off yesterday when I got a terrifying e-mail from Crafty Keith Kahla, my editor at St. Martin's Minotaur. It was actually good news, but I didn't know that at first. All I saw when I checked my Yahoo account was this subject header: "THE CRACK IN THE LENS/PW."
Context: The Crack in the Lens is the new "Holmes on the Range" mystery, due out July 21; PW is slang for Publishers Weekly, one of the most influential sources for pre-release book reviews.
Inference: Keith had seen the PW review for the new book.
Emotional response (being, as my wife likes to call me, "Mr. Worst Case Scenario"): EAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHHH!
But no "EAAAAAARRRRRRRRGHHH!" was necessary. It was a Best Case Scenario. PW didn't just like the book, they starred it -- the publishing world equivalent of an A++ at the top of your spelling test. Here's what they said, redacted for reasons of national security:
The Crack in the Lens: A 'Holmes on the Range' Mystery by Steve Hockensmith
Set in 1893, a few weeks after the events of 2008's The Black Dove, Hockensmith's excellent fourth mystery to feature Otto "Big Red" Amlingmeyer and his older brother, Gustav (a.k.a. "Old Red"), takes them to San Marcos, Tex. The laconic Old Red, whose life took an unexpected turn after his brother introduced him to the deductive methods of Sherlock Holmes, reveals that SPOILER. The pair's efforts to investigate put them at odds with SPOILER as well as the law. The brothers discover that SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER. The personal stake Old Red has in catching the murderer adds an emotional dimension to the puzzle, which Edgar-finalist Hockensmith nicely leavens with witty prose and cliffhanging chapter endings.
The only downside is it's not super-blurby: All I can pick out of it for BSP purposes is "excellent...witty." But hey -- a star's a star!
And not only is Crack out of the gate with a lovely first review, at long last we know what the thing's going to look like. This morning, Keith's assistant Canny Kathleen Conn sent me a jpg for the final cover art. (An early mock cover has been drifting around the Internet, but that version actually got the heave ho months ago.) Click on it to check it out for yourself.
As fun as all that is, though, Crack has to share the limelight with one of its elder siblings. The Black Dove, you see, comes out in trade paperback tomorrow, and it's being given a warm welcome indeed by Rich Prosch over on his Meridian Bridge blog. Not only does Rich have some very kind things to say about the book, he'll be posting a two-part interview with yours truly in the near future. So stay tuned.
And as if taking over someone else's blog for a few days wasn't enough, I recently learned that I've taken over an entire site, permanently...without even trying! "Holmes on the Range" supporter extraordinaire Matthew Szewczyk has taken it upon himself to create his very own Big Red Amlingmeyer fan site. And he's done a bang-up job, I must say: Not only is his website easier to navigate than mine, Matthew's a heck of a lot better about posting news and such than I am. With me you get mega info-dumps like this every once in a blue moon, whereas Matthew's site looks like it's being updated at a nice, steady, orderly pace.
Kudos, Matthew -- you've beat me at my own game. But I hope to scoop you soon, dude. Seems there's one more update I didn't have room for this time around, and it's a doozy. Stick around, kids, and you just might learn what it is by the end of the week.
Heh heh. Doncha just love those cliffhanging endings?
Steve Hockensmith
May 11, 2009