Sunday, August 30, 2009

In Stores Now

In Canada.



The official publication date is September 1st, but I was in my local bookstore yeterday and there was Swap.



It sort of feels like it's been snuck into stores in some kind of stealth operation. No reviews yet, but there is a fantastic blurb on the back from Ken Bruen:

"Swap is a stunning leap forward from an already fine author. This is John channelling Elmore Leonard at the height of his game and with dialogue Tarantino would kill for. A plot that moves lik Pulp Fiction but with a nice Canadian slant that keeps it fresh and different. John's creation of the African-American characters is like Sallis at his finest. With a wicked sense of humour that is irresistible, Swap moves Canadian mystery right to the top."


There's also a nice blurb on the back from Adrian McKinty and one from Tom Piccirilli.

Of course, I had a lot of help writing this book (and everthing else I've ever written) and I don't do those thank-yous in the books because I'll either leave people out or they'll be dozens of pages long but in this case I do want to make a special thank you to Patti Abbott for reading the manuscript and helping me with the Detroit references. I never would have come up with, "... a big house in Grosse Pointe, six bedrooms, a fucking library and a Sub-Zero on the patio in the backyard."

By the way, while I was in the bookstore I bought a first novel by Eugene Meese called A Magpie's Smile because Margaret Cannon gave it a good review in the Globe and Mail and it's set in Calgary in the late 70's and I lived in Calgary then. The wild west. It was booming then with tens of thousands of people moving in every month and I was one of them. I'm looking forward to the book.

And, one more time, here's the trailer for Swap.

6 comments:

Brian Lindenmuth said...

Good on you. I'm looking forward to it.

I've never been able to get in with ECW for review copies, maybe because I'm in the states. Ah well, I'm still buying it no matter.

As I said in my review I still expect YOU to write a wild west novel :)

pattinase (abbott) said...

It was a tremendous pleasure reading this book in ms. form. Can't wait to read the real thing. I'm in Toronto on Thursday to Sunday and will be sure to grab a copy.

adrian mckinty said...

You should only buy this book if you want a terrific read, a lot of laughs, excitement and a bit of a an education. If you dont want any of those things you should avoid.

Scott D. Parker said...

Big congrats on the book. With a book blurb like that (This is John channelling Elmore Leonard at the height of his game and with dialogue Tarantino would kill for.), I'll be ordering this title as soon as I get to our local mystery bookstore, Murder by the Book.

seana graham said...

I'm off tomorrow, but on Wednesday, I'll check at the bookstore and see what the U.S. status of Swap is. I'll try to remember to report back if no one else has done so already.

Great cover, though it probably won't be the U.S. one.

Steve Weddle said...

Fantastic news. Looks like I'll be tracking this one down this week.