Wednesday 20 October 2010

Hard Case Crime Crosses the Atlantic

I’m just back from Bouchercon San Francisco; tired after a wonderful long weekend, marred only by the long journey there and back. One of my many memorable meetings, was with novelist Christa Faust, who’s novel ‘Money Shot’ knocked me out a couple of years ago. I was delighted to learn from Christa that she had penned a follow-up for Charles Ardai’s Hardcase Crime publishing company entitled ‘Choke Hold’ and she was hoping to come to the UK in 2011; then I got word about this exciting development form Ardai’s publishing team -

We've got some big news to announce today: After a year's hiatus, Hard Case Crime will be returning to bookstores with new titles in 2011, thanks to a deal we just signed with UK-based Titan Publishing.

Titan is a publisher both of fiction and of gorgeous art books focusing on pop culture such as movie poster art, pin-ups, newspaper comic strips, and Golden Age comic books, and has worked with filmmakers such as J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, and George Lucas. Titan has been around for 30 years, has more than 200 employees, and in addition to publishing books also has a magazine division, a retail division (Titan owns the famous Forbidden Planet bookstore in London, and until recently co-owned the Murder One mystery bookstore with
Maxim Jakubowski), and a merchandise division that produces items such as t-shirts, sculptures, and accessories. We look forward to exploring ways we might develop some cool Hard Case Crime products with them!

But first things first: books.

Hard Case Crime will relaunch in September/October 2011 with four new books, including CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust (sequel to her Edgar Award-nominated MONEY SHOT), QUARRY'S EX by Max Allan Collins (the latest in the popular series of hit man novels by the author of "Road to Perdition"), and two never-before-published novels by MWA Grand Masters (names to be announced shortly).

Additionally, Titan Publishing plans to acquire all existing stock of Hard Case Crime's backlist from Dorchester Publishing and to resume shipping these titles to booksellers immediately.

New books will be published in paperback (possibly some in hardcover as well!); ebook editions will also be released across multiple platforms. Titan is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Random House.

We're very excited about working with Titan (indeed, we had offers from five publishers and chose Titan over several that were much larger and better-known) -- they love pulp fiction as much as we do and appreciate that in books like ours the visual dimension is just as important as the storytelling. It's hard to imagine a better home for Hard Case Crime.


If you not been collecting the Hard Case Crime novels….where you been man?

Photo Credits

Cover of 'Choke Hold' (c) 2010 Hard Case Crime

Christa Faust with Lee Child at Bouchercon San Francisco (c) 2010 Ali Karim

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