Wednesday 28 June 2017

The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books - Reviews and Blog Tour

I'm just back from a short break, during which I was thrilled to get word of a wonderful and very extensive review of The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books in the Sunday Times. Roland White described the book as "a fascinating guide". It's a long time since I last featured in the Sunday Times. My fourth novel Yesterday's Papers, was one of their Paperbacks of the Year; a great honour, though alas it didn't stop Transworld from deciding not to publish me in paperback any longer (in those days I had a separate hardback publisher). I'm hoping to avoid a similar fate this time....

The book has also been discussed at considerable length in reviews on Bookbag and Cross Examining Crime. It goes without saying that I'm very gratified by the reaction. One labours over a book like this for a long time, constantly trying to make it better, yet conscious that perfection is never achievable. The real question is: how far short of perfection does one fall? It's essential to be philosophical about reviews, because you can never please everybody, but it's always a huge relief when people react positively. Although I never release a book without feeling it's the best I could have done, there's never any guarantee that others will feel likewise (or alternatively, that one's best is good enough). Perhaps because of the enormous positivity about the book so far on both sides of the Atlantic,  publication in the UK has just been brought forward a few days, to today.

Today also marks the start of my blog tour featuring the book. I've contributed distinct but overlapping posts to a range of excellent blogs both here and in the US. Today we start with Lesa Holstine's blog. I first met Lesa quite a while back, when I (together with Ann Cleeves and the late Stuart Pawson) did an event for a group of visiting American crime fans in Harrogate. I'm also looking forward to talking to a similar group in the Lake District next month. Such events, and the connections they engender, are definitely a part of the pleasure of the life of a writer. And so are intelligent and encouraging reviews.


6 comments:

Fiona said...

Just a FYI...you might care to add the missing letter to the title of your post :)

Dolores Gordon-Smith said...

It's great to hear this excellent book is getting some great reviews!

Martin Edwards said...

Thanks, Fiona!

Martin Edwards said...

Hi Dolorees, much appreciated. And so nice to see you and the family at Bodies recently.

Farseer said...

Looking forward to reading this one, but for some reason it doesn't seem to be available as ebook in Amazon.co.uk, like other books in the BL series.

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