Scottoline Moves to St. Martin's; Ralph Dennis

Scottoline Moves to St. Martin's
PW Daily reports today that after fifteen years with HarperCollins, New York Times bestselling thriller writer Lisa Scottoline has inked a four-book deal with St. Martin's Press. Her last book with HarperCollins, LADY KILLER, will be published in February 2008. "I'm just thrilled about the group of people at St. Martin's and the plans they have for me," Scottoline told PW. "It's a big change but I'm looking forward it. I think this will be an interesting, fun and exciting time. They're very creative and dynamic people with a real esprit. I feel caught up in their enthusiasm."

Scottoline's new editor at St. Martin's Press will be vp and associate publisher Jen Enderlin. "I'll miss Carolyn Marino, who was so wonderful an editor at HarperCollins," said Scottoline. "But I hope to have an equally wonderful relationship with Jen. She's so enthusiastic about my writing and has new ideas for my books."
copyright 2007 by Galleycat
------------------------

RALPH DENNIS

Ed here: I'm reprinting this from last year because I read a Ralph Dennis novel last night and was reminded how good he was at what he did.

from 2006

Ralph Dennis

Tommorrow night I'm going to run a piece by the writer Richard A. Moore on the subject of the most beloved obscure private eye writer who ever lived, that being Ralph Dennis who published eleven novels in his Hardman series in the early 1970s.

The books are short enough that I was able to read two of them last night preparing for this entry. The story goes, and the story is wrong, that maybe just maybe Robert B. Parker read one these got his idea for a white p.i. with a black superdude buddy. That is the one similarity the two series share and it's not much of a similarity at all. To me, on a lesser level, the mixed race buddies go back to at least The Lone Ranger.

Where Parker is resolutely BWM and upscale, Dennis is resolutely blue collar (or below). Both men prefer the worlds of their invention to the worlds most of us would call reality. Both the are very good at giving the patina of reality to their respective worlds but their wise enough not to give us naturalism in their books. Chandler was very real either.

Dennis coulda been a contender. His was a narrower fix on the p.i. field than Parker's but if he'd lived longer that might have changed. Parker is a great mass entertainer. A true and enduring star. I'm not sure that Dennis, or most of us, have that quaity in us. That's not to lessen Dennis' achievements, which are considerable. It's just that he never takes us anywhere different. He pretty much lives on the mean streets with down and outers. Parker takes on life in pro sports, life on a college faculty, life on tracking a serial killer. He's like great and classic boxer. He knows enough to keep moving.

Richard Moore is a fine writer in his own right and brings all his gifts to this intriguing piece on the sad life of another fine writer, Ralph Dennis.