OLD GOLD — Edgar Award Winning Wendy Hornsby's Early Classics, Ready For Your E-Book Pleasure

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's Wendy Hornsby’s story in her own words.

I love used bookstores.   For a few bucks you can fill your arms with treasure:  new authors to try, old favorites to meet again.

There came a time when my own books began to show up in used bookstores.  It always tickled me to find them.  It still does.   Every author should be happy to see a book remain in circulation in any form.  There is a great investment of time and heart and soul in the production of those pages.  How painful it would be if those books entirely vanished from view.

  

Enter the brave new world of e-books, a used bookstore by other means.  For about what I’d pay at a used bookstore, I can fill up my e-reader with new discoveries and, if I may, Old Gold.

It took me about a minute to understand that if I could convert all my out-of-print titles to e-books, they need never go out of print again.  My problem, as always, was time.  Do-it-yourself electronic re-publication, even with a hired “producer,” can be complicated, fussy, somewhat costly, and very time consuming.

Last fall, MysteriousPress.com, partnered with Open Road, offered to publish my backlist in every e-format out there; God bless Otto Penzler.  My only hand in the process was to send hard copies of the books.

  

At Christmas, Otto sent me note to take a look at www.MysteriousPress.com.  And there they all are, five books in the Maggie MacGowen series and the two Kate and Tejeda books, all with bright new covers, as pretty as can be.   A happy day.

To borrow from Baron von Frankenstein, “They live!”

Edgar Award winning author Wendy Hornsby is the author of nine mystery novels and many short stories.  The Paramour’s Daughter, from Perseverance Press, is her most recent book.  For further information see www.WENDYHORNSBY.com.

OLD GOLD — P. B. Ryan's First Gilded Age Mystery Back In The Limelight

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's P.B Ryan’s story in her own words.

“Six historical mysteries featuring governess Nell Sweeney.” That was what it said on the contract Berkley Prime Crime sent me in August of 2002. Yes, it was a six-book contract. Berkley had no intention of letting me slip the noose, and I was fine with that — thrilled, in fact. After years of writing medieval romance —always heavy on my first love, mystery and suspense — I was finally going to get to write real, honest-to-God whodunits. Historical whodunits, no less, set in post-Civil War Boston.

Urban historical settings have always fascinated me, especially 12th century London and 19th century...well, any 19th century American city. Barbara Hambly’s brilliant Benjamin January mysteries, which take place in New Orleans in the 1830’s, were a major influence on me, but being a northeasterner myself, I knew I wanted either New York or Boston. Since Berkley already published a successful series set in New York, Boston it was.

My friends call me “the Research Slut,” with good reason, because I absolutely do not know when to stop. When I choose a particular era as a fictional setting, I need to learn every freakin’ thing there is to learn about life in that time and place. I’m not talking about historical events, although they do figure in, of course. I’m talking about how things looked and smelled and felt, how people thought and talked, what they wore and ate and cared about. I spend months documenting what I learn from books and the Internet, and then I use about 1% of it in any given book.

My biggest pet peeve with historical fiction is that it can come off as pedantic, with info dumps that yank you repeatedly out of the story, making what should be an engaging work of fiction feel dull and slow. From the first book of the series, Still Life With Murder, I sought to create a world my reader could truly get lost in. My favorite letters from readers are the ones that say, “I was awake till 2:00 am finishing this book, and then I immediately started the next one.”

If I can ruin someone’s sleep, I consider it a job well done.

For more information on P.B. Ryan and her books, please click here.

OLD GOLD — Lev Raphael's Nick Hoffman, Academic, Not Elementary

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold,” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's Lev Raphael’s story in his own words.

The Edith Wharton Murders was my first “crossover” book. It was my first to be reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, with a rave. And in many bookstores, it got shelved in Mystery sections and Literature, sometimes side-by-side with books by Edith Wharton. All of that delighted me, since it featured a sleuth who loved two things: teaching and books.
I was freaked out to have a lifelong dream come true, and when the fax came from my agent the Monday before the review was going to run, I literally jumped up and down before calling friends. If there'd been a football field nearby, I would have been celebrating in the end zone. Then a doubt hit me: what if they changed their minds? Was that possible? My patient spouse assured me the Times did not retract reviews. Whew!

The novel's sleuth is an Edith Wharton scholar corralled into organizing a Wharton conference at his Midwestern University. His colleagues don't want the work or responsibility, and he doesn't have tenure, so the promise is that he'll get it if things go well. Of course they don't. As I heard at a mystery conference in Oxford from a sociologist: “Academics don’t have good means of crisis resolution.” The conference brings together two rival Wharton societies whose members loathe each other. Murder is the only possible result.

If you think academia is lightweight, you haven't experienced it. The academic world is piratical and dehumanizing. It has the vanity of professional sports; the hypocrisy of politics; the cruelty of big business; and the inhumanity of organized crime. All of that makes it a perfect setting for murder and satire. www.levraphael.com/

OLD GOLD — Janet Dawson's Jeri Howard is Back in a Big Way

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold,” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's Janet Dawson’s story in her own words.

As I proofread e-book files of my backlist Jeri Howard novels, I was struck by how many of my fictional outings had their genesis in real events. We mystery writers like to have loose ends wrapped up, even if real life doesn’t work out that way.

Kindred Crimes had its roots in real-life murders in Colorado – a husband and wife killed by their son. After years of asking myself why the crime occurred, I wrote my own version of the truth.

Another Colorado crime led to Till The Old Men Die. A professor and his wife vanished. A mystery woman claimed to know what had happened to them. She never told anyone the truth, then she was confined to the state mental hospital, where she died. In my book the professor has been murdered. My mystery woman has her own agenda. The crime is solved; the real-life case was not.

I once read a newspaper article about a man in Missouri who had been killed on a public street with lots of witnesses. The dead man was so thoroughly disliked that no one would give the police any information on the shooter. This was the impetus for Take A Number, in which the murder victim was so nasty that anyone who wanted to kill him would have to take a number and get in line.

I once worked at a corporation that went through a leveraged buyout – an experience that would provide fertile grounds for murder. So I wrote Where The Bodies Are Buried – after I’d left that particular job.

For more information on award-winning author Janet Dawson, her new novel, Bit Player, and the e-book versions of her earlier classics, go here.

OLD GOLD — Terence Faherty's Retro Hollywood PI Back on Top

Sometimes a great series character slips from the limelight. Sometimes we are fortunate to witness their return. “Old Gold,” in addition to featuring reissued crime classics from current writers, looks at new releases featuring the resurrection of classic characters. Here's the story in the author's words.

Writing Dance in the Dark, the fourth novel featuring my Hollywood historical PI Scott Elliott, was a return to familiar ground for me. Before I started the book, in the fall of 2005, it seemed as though the Elliott series would end as a trilogy, at least as far as novels were concerned. I was having some success with Elliott short stories (reprinted earlier this year in a collection called The Hollywood Op), but the most recent novel, 2000's Raise the Devil, had disappeared with scarcely a ripple.

Then in 2005, Jim Huang's small press, The Mystery Company, brought out a stand-alone novella, In a Teapot, which garnered some nice review attention and received the series' third Shamus nomination. That encouraged me to start another Elliott novel. I wanted to get him to the wild Altamont concert of 1969 (or a reasonable facsimile of it) and I'd been kicking around a plot idea that would do it. The writing took a long time — ten months for a first draft — because I interrupted the process four times to write short stories.

Once completed, Dance in the Dark spent a while making the rounds before finding a home with Five Star, but I'm very pleased with the resulting book, especially its haunting cover. One reviewer wrote of the novel's "valedictory sadness," which may reflect the fifty-something Elliott's sense of things falling apart. Or the book's fifty-something author's sense of it. If Elliott knew what lies ahead for him and Hollywood — disco — he'd be even bluer. — Terence Faherty

OLD GOLD — Michael Z. Lewin Brings Back Classic Indianapolis P.I. Albert Samson

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold,” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's the story in the author's words.

I find the new technologies that are transforming access to the written world really exciting. I love that electronic platforms make it possible for books — OK, my books — to come out again when, for so long, they’ve been staying in. For me this currently applies only to the most recent of my eight Samson novels, Eye Opener. But I have every intention of putting the other Samsons back into the realm of the available.

The first time Albert Samson plied his PI trade in Indianapolis was in 1971. That’s forty years ago. It’s amazing I’m still alive, don’t you think? And that he is — because at least a couple of new Samson stories will emerge in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, the first in December, 2011.

I intend to put more than just the Samsons out there electronically. Other older books too, but also new work. The book I’m working on now will go straight to electronic formats without even being offered to conventional publishers. Assuming I can work out the how-to part of the process….

I’ve been inspired to do this by a friend and neighbor, the brilliant Liza Cody — author of the Anna Lee PI books, the Eva Wylie trilogy and other novels. She’s just published Ballad of a Dead Nobody herself, not least because she could fix the price of the electronic edition at $2.99. And this point in my life and career I — like Liza — am far more interested in having new readers than in having better-filled pockets. — Michael Z. Lewin

OLD GOLD — Bill Crider's Truman Smith, Texas Private Eye Goes Digital

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold,” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's the story in the author's words.

I always wanted to be Raymond Chandler. Or Dashiell Hammett. Ross Macdonald would have suited me just fine, too.Things didn’t work out like that. The first book I published under my own name was a third-person narrative about Sheriff Dan Rhodes. The setting was a small Texas county far from the mean streets of Los Angeles or San Francisco. That was back in 1986, and the series continues today, so I really can’t complain.

After a couple of books about the sheriff, I got my chance at a private-eye novel. A new editor at Walker Books liked the idea, so I set out to do my Chandler bit. It didn’t work out that time, either, because as much as I’d have loved to write like Chandler, he was the only one who could. The same with Hammett and Macdonald. Everything I wrote came out sounding like me.

And that was just fine, too. I wrote five books about a Texas private eye named Truman Smith who in the first one, Dead on the Island, returned to his hometown of Galveston to try to find his missing sister. The books got good reviews, the first one was nominated for a Shamus Award, the editors (I went through two of them) loved the books, and I loved writing them. What could possibly go wrong?

Sales, that’s what. Not the sales of the hardbacks. Those were fine. But there was no paperback deal. That wasn’t fine. The publisher was making money on the books, but not enough money. So after five titles, the series disappeared. Truman Smith had a good run. He never found his missing sister, but he investigated the killing of an alligator and a prairie chicken, not to mention tangling with a couple of killers of people. Now he’s found a new life in e-book format, and all five books will eventually be published in that form. I hope he’s going to stick around for a while. — Bill Crider

OLD GOLD — Paul Levine's Jake Lassiter, How It All Began

Early works by some of our best, current crime writers have been out of print for years. But times are changing. Many of these highly praised novels are available again as e-books and or trade paperbacks. “Old Gold” is a periodic blog feature that focuses on these reissued treasures. Here's the story in the author's words.

Many years ago, I rented a condo on Maui for the summer, intent on polishing my skills as a competitive windsurfer. My second day at Hookipa Beach, bouncing over the lip of a roller, the board exploded out of the water and smashed my femur. The ER physician told me nothing was broken and recommended smoking a little Maui Wowie for the pain. (No, not Dr. House).

So I sat on the beach with a yellow pad and started handwriting a novel featuring a character that popped into my mind: linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter. Here’s the first sentence of fiction I ever wrote, (not counting certain statements in my appellate briefs). “The old man loved gadgets, money, and large-breasted women, and at the moment, he had all three.”

When I returned home to Miami to resume practicing law, I put the novel aside and wrote To Speak for the Dead, which became my first published book. I kept re-writing Riptide, which appeared as a William Morrow hardcover under the title Slashback. And that line about gadgets, money, and breasts? It’s now the first sentence of chapter two. Here’s what the Tampa Tribune had to say:

“A thriller as fast as the wind...a bracing rush, as breathtaking as hitting the Gulf waters on a chill December morning.”

There’s more about the Jake Lassiter series on my website, including info about Riptide, in which Jake Lassiter chases two dangerous professional windsurfers from Miami to Maui in pursuit of the old man’s stolen bonds. You can buy the e-book from Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Smashwords. — Paul Levine