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 shot
gun 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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