Bob's Minky Tale

More great news from Charles Ardai’s Hard Case Crime, which we're proud to reveal is an imprint published by British Titan Books.

Hard Case Crime has published books by a number Mystery Writers of America 'Grand Masters' over the years -- Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Stephen King as well as the highly anticipated 'Choke Hold' from Christa Faust, the follow-up to the disturbing 'Money Shot'-- but in 2012 we're going to add to this illustrious list a Grand Master from the other side of the aisle, the Science Fiction Writers of America: Robert Silverberg.

Five-time winner of the Nebula Award, five-time winner of the Hugo Award, author of acclaimed, mind-bending fantasy novels that have won praise from people like Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon, Bob began his career writing under fake names for the last surviving pulp magazines. For the very last issue ever of TRAPPED DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE, the editor asked if he could supply a complete novel, and Bob did, an action-packed suspense thriller about a government agent going undercover in the Philadelphia Mob to root out a master currency forger from within. The issue of TRAPPED appeared on newsstands in 1962 -- and after it went off sale a few weeks later, this work by Silverberg vanished. It never appeared under the author's real name, never appeared in book form -- never appeared in any form for the past half-century.

And it's a great read.

So...in April 2012, Hard Case Crime will be giving BLOOD ON THE MINK its first-ever proper publication, including a new afterword by Silverberg discussing the novel's genesis and his work for the pulps, as well as two short stories he wrote for the pulps that have a connection to the novel, and that also haven't seen the light of day for more than 50 years.

Somewhere in Philadelphia, a master engraver is turning out brilliant forgeries of U.S. currency plates for organized crime. To bring the operation down from the inside, the government sends an agent undercover posing as a West Coast crime lord’s right-hand man. It’s a dangerous game of impersonation—one that could prove fatal when the agent’s secret begins to unravel...

Click Here to read a sample chapter