The Night and The Music - The Matt Scudder Stories

Ed here: I'm having computer problem so can't send the links. You can find them at the end of the letter. Here's from Larry Block What can I tell ya--it's Matthew Scudder.

Lawrence Block:

Well, I didn't do a very good job of retiring, did I? GETTING OFF, just released September 20, was my fifth new book of 2011, following on the heels of THE LIAR'S BIBLE, THE LIAR'S COMPANION, A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF, and AFTERTHOUGHTS.

But wait, there's more...

It's my great pleasure to attach both a Kindle-ready .mobi file and a PDF of THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC, a collection of Matthew Scudder short stories, which I'll be self-publishing in early October.

I've been writing novels about Matt Scudder since the early 1970s, and he's turned up in novelettes and short stories for almost as long. THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC contains the nine stories I've published over the years, along with two new ones; "Mick Ballou Looks at the Blank Screen" appeared only as the text of a 100-copy limited broadside, while the elegiac "One Last Night at Grogan's" was written this summer, specifically for inclusion in this volume, and has been published nowhere else.

When I told my friend Brian Koppelman about the book, he immediately volunteered to write an introduction. Brian's a screenwriter and director ("Rounders," "Knockaround Guys," "Solitary Man," Ocean's Thirteen"), and I think you'll be touched by his account of discovering Scudder at age 15. I know I was.

And the book closes with (what else?) an author's afterword, detailing some of the circumstances of the writing and publication of each story.

I'm genuinely excited about this book, not least of all because I'm publishing it myself. The good people at Telemachus Press have done the heavy lifting, making sure it's perfectly formatted and professionally put together, but it's my baby.

And I've been uncommonly discreet about it, so it's a fair bet that you're hearing about it for the first time in this email. In a week or two I'll be blogging and tweeting like crazy, doing what I can to spread the word far and wide, but first I wanted to send you a copy in the hope that you'll be moved to review it. You've been wonderfully generous to me in the past, so you have only yourself to blame for having this turn up in your mailbox. And I can only hope you'll like it, and want to tell people about it.

Some specifics: It's available as an eBook, for sale on all major platforms: Kindle, Nook, Apple, and all those served by Smashwords. The eBook price is $2.99.

It's also offered as a Print-on-Demand paperback @ $14.95. A handful of select mystery booksellers will be able to furnish signed copies, and I'll also offer signed copies at my website bookstore.

Otto Penzler loved the book, and he'll be doing it proud, with one of his deluxe leather-bound hardcover first editions, limited to100 signed and numbered copies, for sale (while they last) @ $150.

When I read THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC all the way through, it struck me that it's very much of a piece with the seventeen novels, so that it could fairly be considered the eighteenth book in the series—one I began writing in the mid-1970s and just completed this summer.

Because "One Last Night at Grogan's" brings Scudder's story up to date, one might see it as a coda to the series. Will there be more stories? More novels? I really don't know. It's never been given to me to know what I'm going to write next, and the several times I thought I was done telling Matt's story I turned out to be (like Bogart in Casablanca) misinformed. So we'll have to let time tell.

I'd cut this short, but it's too late for that, isn't it? I hope you enjoy this early look at THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC, and that you'll help let the world know about it.

I'm attaching a jpeg of the cover as well. The ISBNs, if you need to know them, are 978-1-937387-310 for the eBook and 978-1-937387-32-7 for the paperback And if you're inclined to do an email interview, just send your Qs at your convenience.

Larry

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Lawrence Block
www.lawrenceblock.com
http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/
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Twitter: @LawrenceBlock

"Don't you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is
think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat
words! And they don't even have to be true!"
—Dave Barry