Consider Me a Co-conspirator

Last June, I was contacted by British editor and former bookstore proprietor Maxim Jakubowski. He said he’d been approached by a London publishing house, asking if he would put together “a travel/reference book” that looked at 20 cities or places around the world through the eyes of the detective novelists most closely associated with them. Jakuboswki was recruiting writers to take on the 20 essays, and he asked me to participate in the project. I was certainly honored by the invitation, and quickly accepted.

Nine months later, Jakubowski reports that “the book is now being copy-edited and designed and is on course for early autumn publication” from New Holland Publishers. He adds, “For those of you who might be visiting the London Book Fair next month, there will be a dummy and sample pages on view at the New Holland stand.”

I didn’t want to go spreading information too early about this book, which is titled Following the Detectives. But with Jakubowski’s permission, I can now at least list the 21 cities/regions covered and the essayists involved in the project:

• Boston: Michael Carlson
• Brighton: Barry Forshaw
• Chicago: Dick Adler and Maxim Jakubowski
• Dublin: Declan Burke
• Edinburgh: Barry Forshaw
• Florida: Oline Cogdill
• Iceland: Peter Rozovsky
• London: David Stuart Davies
• Los Angeles: Maxim Jakubowski
• New Orleans: Maxim Jakubowski
• New York City: Sarah Weinman
• Nottingham: John Harvey
• Oxford: Martin Edwards
• Paris: Barry Forshaw
• San Francisco: J. Kingston Pierce
• Shropshire: Martin Edwards
• Sicily: Peter Rozovsky
• Southern California: Michael Carlson
• Sweden: Barry Forshaw
• Venice: Barry Forshaw
• Washington, D.C.: Sarah Weinman

As you can see, I am in extremely good company here. I look forward to seeing the design of the book and, eventually, receiving copies. And I have to thank Maxim Jakubowski for asking me to take part in the creation of Following the Detectives. I’ve seen seven of my non-fiction books published in the past, and have contributed chapters or essays to many other works. But this is the first time my prose has been included in a volume specifically about crime fiction.

It won’t be the last, I guarantee it.