Then Harlan wrote his break-out book, Tell No One, which had a great hook and not a lot of joking, and suddenly he was in hardcover and there was a lot of gossip about million dollar deals and movie rights. (The hook was that a man’s wife has been murdered by a serial killer, yet a mysterious e-mail arrives on the anniversary of their first kiss, which leads him to wonder whether she might still be alive. The one problem I had with the book is that the author withholds some major, major information, but it was still a fun read, with a few characters named after folks everyone knows in the mystery community.) (Full disclosure: I wonder if the reviewer at PW is now eating his words in his review for that book: “The publisher will pitch this as a summer beach read, and it's not a bad one. In fact, it may outsell Coben's mysteries, despite its flaws.” Uh, yeah, in spades!)
So I guess when you get really famous, first they re-issue all your old paperback originals in new packages. And then they try to wring some more money from the market and issue them all in hardcover. As a reviewer, I just got one, Drop Shot, which was only the second in the paperback series. So they’ve got five more books to pimp out to readers who might think they are getting a new thriller, when actually they are getting his old sportswriter series books.
I just hope the rights had reverted back to him by the time that happened.
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