Newsletter 04/12

April 2012

Sorry I haven’t gotten out a Newsletter this year, but I’ve been working diligently on The Panther — a John Corey novel — and I’m happy to report that it will be done in early May. Publication date for The Panther is scheduled for October 16, which gives everyone enough time to buy the book and read it before the world ends on December 21, 2012. The Panther will also make a great Christmas gift — but you should give it before December 21, because…well, you know why. In conclusion, I want to wish my Christian friends and family a Happy Easter, and my Jewish friends and family a Happy Passover. And the same to all our men and women serving in the armed forces and other national security services around the world.

I’m also happy to report that you can now pre-order The Panther online. The Panther will also be available as a Hachette AudioBook and, of course, as an eBook. If you order both, you can read it on your eBook reader while listening to it on audio. This is a little weird, I know, but some guy in Billings, Montana tells me he’s done this with my books, and he doesn’t have to use his hearing aid or his reading glasses. Let me know if you understand this.

Back in May 2011, the annual Mystery Writers of America anthology titled The Rich and the Dead was published. You may recall that I was the anthology editor, and that I contributed a short story to the book titled “Death Benefits.” I’m now happy to announce that my publisher, Grand Central Publishing, will be offering my short story on Kindle, in August. Check it out — it’s a good deal and a good read.

Next month, in May, the mass market paperback edition of my most recent novel, The Lion, will be published. Included in this edition will be an excerpt from The Panther at no extra charge..

At about that time — May or June — I will be posting these Panther chapters on my website. Let me know how you like them.

As I’ve mentioned in past Newsletters, I get hundreds of emails every month and I assure you I read every one of them. Unfortunately, I can’t reply to every one of them, though I do try to reply to as many as I can. Thanks to everyone who’s emailed me so far this year, and I look forward to hearing from you again. Especially the guy in Billings, Montana.

Hollywood news: I got a call from a major producer who says that Aaron Eckhart is really interested in playing the character of John Corey. Eckhart is a great actor and if you saw him in
“Thank you for Smoking,” you’ll agree. He was also in “The Dark Knight” and he strikes me as the perfect actor to play John Corey. What the producer is proposing is a cable TV series, along the lines of ” Homeland”, in which each of the Corey books — Plum Island, The Lion’s Game, Night Fall, Wild Fire, The Lion, and The Panther — is presented in ten or twelve weekly segments during the season. This could be interesting because it’s a much longer format than a 90-100 minute feature film, and most of the book can be adapted to the screen. I’ll keep everyone up to date.

In conclusion, I want to wish my Christian friends and family a Happy Easter, and my Jewish friends and family a Happy Passover.  And the same to all our men and women serving in the armed forces and other national security services around the world.

Sincerely,