Sunday 9 August 2009

THE CAT'S OUT OF THE BAG - The Hard Case boys have been ratted on.

Hard Case Crime boss man, Charles Ardai has done his best to keep the title of the companies second December book release a secret - something about creating a bit of suspense for all the loyal Hard Case Crime readers.

However Amazon have let the cat out the bag - As Charles explained in his latest newsletter:

"I know, in my last e-mail I wrote that I planned to keep the identity of our second December title a secret until we got closer to its Christmas-season publication date (I think I said something like "I'll tell you when it gets a little colder outside"). Well, it's only August and still plenty hot here in New York City -- but it's hard to keep a secret in the age of the Internet, especially when sites like Amazon.com put books up for pre-order four months in advance...

Yes: You can now see our second December title on Amazon.com (though you have to hunt around a little, due to a bizarre error that has our book's cover attached for some reason to a horror novel by Gord Rollo). But since they let the cat out of the bag early, I figured we might as well come clean, too -- so you can find a full complement of information on the book (cover art, description, sample chapter) at our Web site: www.HardCaseCrime.com."



Mr Ardai then went onto give some tantalising snippets of information regarding the book.


"And what is the book...? It's the very hard-boiled story of a man murdered by a blast from a sawed-off shotgun to the face at point-blank range; of a criminal on the run from Chicago who comes to a dirty Pennsylvania coal-mining town and winds up locking horns with the corrupt Masonic lodge that runs the town; of a Pinkerton detective who sets out to clean up the town; and of the doom that pursues a man across an ocean and leaves him at the mercy of the world's most ruthless criminal mastermind. It's a story narrated by a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, whose partner in investigating the twisted plot is a drug addicted private investigator with a brain like a steel trap.

And wait till you see the cover -- Glen Orbik has really outdone himself here, with his portrait of a gorgeous, bosomy dame in a transparent negligee watching with horror as a man with a brand on his arm appears in her doorway."




The Hard Case Crime series is a favourite of mine. They have been publishing pulp style paperback since 2004 when the excellent long out of print, Grifter's Game by Lawrance Block became their debut title.

I'm, as are many others, looking forward to the forthcoming books. Later in the week the Archive will review Fifty to One by Charles Ardai himself which was the fiftieth title published by the company and is quite a unique concept. Each chapter. 50 in all (well did you expect anything else?) is named after each Hard Case Crime book released upto that point. And not only that but each chapter had to reflect their respective title - it must have been a major task to plan it all out and then write a more than readable book but Mr Ardai managed it admirably.


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6 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I've only read one hard case crime book, the one by Stephen King. And it was soooooooo bad I've never read another. I hear that others are better, and I may try some at some point, but it's hard to overcome an initial really really bad impression.

Cullen Gallagher said...

I'm really looking forward to this Doyle book, particularly as I'm criminally under-read when it comes to his work.

P.M. said...

Don't let "The Colorado Kid" scare you away from HCC's excellent catalog. I agree that one stunk, but the vast majority of their titles are excellent. I can't complain too much about The Colorado Kid though because without it I may never have stumbled across Hard Case Crime. I found it while looking at Stephen King novels online.

Jerry House said...

I've read about half the Hard Case books (but not the King, alas) and have enjoyed them all. Ardai is doing a great job with the line and this Doyle fellow will be a great addition.

This news comes at a time when I'm on a ACD kick: just finished The Doings of Raffles Haw and am currently reading The Mystery of Cloomber. Dorchester doesn't get much distribution in my area, but I'll definitely pick up Valley in December.

Unknown said...

Fascinating . . . Hard Case reprinting The Valley of Fear ! As Black Horse Western readers know, the classic Sherlock Holmes story was "rewritten", with a new background and some new twists, as Blast to Oblivion, which was published in February this year, 94 years to the day after the first book appearance of the original.

You can read about it here: www.blackhorsewesterns.com/bhe13

I wish the western could have benefited from a Glen Orbik cover! As it was, the book was well received. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London said, "Mr O’Keefe has reworked the plot of a Sherlock Holmes story as an exploit of his ex-Pinkerton protagonist Joshua Dillard. The result is clever, atmospheric and exciting." Peter E. Blau, a trustee and secretary of the society's famed New York counterpart, the Baker Street Irregulars, similarly circulated his members with the advice that Chap's book "opens with an epigraph from The Valley of Fear, and with good reason: the book is a western, with plenty of color and atmosphere and violence, and a mystery that will not be a surprise to those who have read and remember Conan Doyle's story."

Blast to Oblivion was also favorably reviewed or mentioned here at the Archive and the Mystery File and Rafe McGregor blogs.

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

I'll be buying this even though I've got the story in several editions - I love that cover - Holmes Noir.

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