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“Valley Boy is the story of every kid who wandered out of [...]]]>

Valley Boy ($13.95, 254 pp, 6×9 Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60381-145-3), by Jack Remick, covers a year in the life of a third-generation Okie teenager who is struggling with the stigma of his heritage.

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“Valley Boy is the story of every kid who wandered out of the Valley into Baghdad by the Bay with dreams, imagination, curiosity and a mind that admitted stuff besides cars and girls. I’m tempted to say this is Remick’s best work …. The story is witty, tense and true. The protagonist is Ricky, but this is Linard’s story too—which makes this novel a more fulfilling coming of age journey than that of the self-absorbed, self-righteous icon of the Eastern Experience—Holden Caulfield …. Remick might be accused of writing a happy ending but I, for one, am happy to see an ol’ Okie boy find his place in the shade and out of those god damned vineyards and peach orchards. Good for Ricky. Good for Remick. It takes guts to write a novel such as this.”

—Frank Araujo, Anthropologist, Linguist, and Author of The Q Quest, A Perfect Orange, Nekane, The Lamiña and the Bear

“Valley Boy is a teeming amalgam of allegory, pathos, and stark language, all wrapped in a blend of dark humor and strangely relatable characters. What is Valley Boy about? Turkey debeaker Ricky Edwards heads to college, falls in love with a rock guitarist, and faces coming of age challenges—such as learning how to order coffee and the importance of following The Rules—revealed in a storyline reminiscent of an Allen Ginsberg poem. Remick writes with a fresh voice in prose as raw as the open wounds his subjects are apt to suffer. An unrelenting literary experiment that is also a terrific read. Best enjoyed with a caffe latte … or maybe a macchiato?”

—Cole Alpaugh, author of The Bear in a Muddy Tutu and The Turtle Girl from East Pukapuka

“A lost Valley Boy is dying to belong so he takes a job debeaking turkeys—hot, sweaty, mindless work that still demands precision—to make the money to buy a hot car—the pricey ticket required for acceptance into the Lifters (all male hot rod club), but forces beyond his control—blind teenage lust, blue collar legacy, his inherited talent for the piano, love from an older woman, his jaundiced view of the church, and an exorbitant price for the blue Mercury Cougar—these forces pull the Valley Boy to the brink of his big decisions: Does he stay in the Valley? Does he marry the girl next door? Valley Boy is Remick at full power. Valley Boy is a non-stop read.”

—Robert J. Ray, author of Murdock Cracks Ice, and The Weekend Novelist Series.

Ricky Edwards lives, works, and plays in Centerville, a small California town in the middle of the Valley. Ricky has a gift for music but he’d rather fight, drink beer, chase girls, and debeak turkeys. He debeaks turkeys because he wants a Lifters Car Club jacket with red lettering on the back. He fights because his long time pal, Linard Polk, teaches him about violence, fast cars, and guns—which drives Teresa, Ricky’s hyper-religious mother, nuts. She wants Ricky to escape the legacy of his daddy, an Okie skirt chaser who abandoned the family for a honky-tonk preacher’s daughter gone bad. If Ricky can just get out of Centerville, maybe he can make his mark.

Says Remick: “When you grow up in the Central Valley you meet people who never stray much beyond their home town unless it’s to go next door to a football game. If you’re not the right caste, you learn to work with your hands and you work hard. You wonder if you can ever get out. I wrote Valley Boy in part to remind readers about the Diaspora, the Westward migration, that started in the Dust Bowl. Most people think the Migration ended with World War II, but it didn’t. In Valley Boy, the main characters are third-generation Okies who didn’t make it to the Pacific, got stuck in the dust, and were left behind in the orchards and vineyards doing the gut-busting labor that turns young boys into old men way too soon. I wanted to write about those Okie boys, like Ricky and Linard, who work and live with the bad taste of lost dreams in their mouths.

Jack Remick is a poet, short story writer, and novelist. Valley Boy is Book Two of a series, The California Quartet. More volumes will be released by Coffeetown Press in 2012: The Book of Changes and Trio of Lost Souls. The first book of the series, The Deification, was released in December of 2011. Blood, A Novel was published by Camel Press in 2011. Also coming from Coffeetown in 2012: Gabriela and the Widow. Click here to find Jack online.

Valley Boy is available in Kindle and 5×8 trade paperback editions on Amazon.com, the European Amazons and Amazon Japan. Wholesale orders can be placed through info@coffeetownpress.com or Ingram. Libraries can also purchase books through Follett Library Resources and Midwest Library Service.

Read on for an excerpt:

On Monday, in detention, Chela was sitting on a chair with her legs crossed and bouncing her foot in those white sandals. Her hair was up high. She was chewing gum and right off Ricky needed to get close to her. He dragged a chair over and sat down facing her. He said,

You want to go out with me?

She looked at her fingernails for a long time before she looked at him. And she stared him in the face and he wanted to crawl back behind the words, but she said,

You wanna go out with a Mexican?

I wanna go out with you.

What’s your mama gonna say?

My mama don’t tell me what to do, Ricky said.

What’s Linard gonna say?

What’s Linard got to say about what I do?

I can’t go out with you.

Why not?

My dad will kill me if I date an Anglo.

I’m an Okie, Ricky said. I’m not Anglo.

Chela laughed and, curling her fingers in her hair, she smiled.

Come on, Ricky said. I’ll take you to a movie.

A Mexican movie? At the Centerville Theater?

If that’s what you want.

I wanna go to Fresno to the Cinerama.

You tell me where and we’ll go there.

You really wanna go out with me?

I really do.

Well, no one can know, she said. Not even Linard Polk.

Why not?

’Cause of his pinchi brother, Kevin, you know?

Yeah, I know Kevin. He’s in the Marines.

Well, he knocked up Tony’s cousin and she hadda go to TJ for an abortion and she almost died.

Tony’s cousin? Ricky said. Who’s Tony?

Tony Avila, Chela said. My best friend, puto. Open your eyes and look around, man, ’cause you don’t know anybody in this pinchi school.

Okay, Ricky said, I won’t say nothin’ to nobody.

You better not ’cause if you do and my dad finds out he’ll beat the pinchi mierda outa you and he’ll kill me. You know what mierda is?

I think so, Ricky said.

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While [...]]]>

Death of a Dean ($12.95, 202 pages, ISBN: 978-1-60381-142-2) is the seventh of Hazel Holt’s Mrs. Malory Mysteries. It was first published in 1996 and has been out of print for several years.

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While in Stratford, widow Sheila Malory always stays with her old friend, actor David Beaumont. On this visit she finds him in dire straits: his career is on the skids and his finances are in ruins. Unless he can convince his penny-pinching brother Francis to sell their jointly owned family home in the seaside village of Taviscombe, the bank will repossess his cottage.

Francis, Dean of the Culminster Cathedral, does not believe that charity begins at home. He refuses to put the house on the market or provide a loan. Mrs. Malory offers David a place to stay in her own home in Taviscombe so that the two brothers might meet in person to find a solution. Even if Francis can be persuaded to sell, one impediment remains: their ancient and addled nanny has been told that she can stay in the home until she dies.

Even after Nana’s sudden death, Francis insists that they hold on to the property. When he dies from consuming high tea laced with poison, the police conclude that both deaths were murder. Unfortunately David is their prime suspect. Determined to clear her friend’s name, Mrs. Malory applies her considerable skills as an amateur sleuth to identify the real culprit.

She has seen her share of evil, but even Mrs. Malory is shocked by what her investigation turns up.

Keep reading for an excerpt:

“Now then …”

One of the two telephones on his desk rang, the sudden, shrilling noise seeming strange and unsuitable, somehow, in such a place.

“Excuse me.” Francis picked up the instrument. “Yes, yes, I quite understand, Archdeacon. I will see you later …. Yes. Good-bye. I’m sorry.”

He replaced the receiver and spoke to David. “Cathedral business. I may conceivably have to go down to sort something out with the archdeacon later on, and then, as I told you, I must see the precentor—but I should be able to deal with them both quite quickly. We have plenty of time, since Evensong is, as you are aware, not until five-fifteen. Now then,” he turned to me, “here are the lists I mentioned of gifts promised, valuations where available—perhaps you could fill in the gaps there by consulting suitable authorities…” He broke off again as there was a tap at the door. “Yes, come in! What is it?”

Monica Woodward put her head around the door and said apologetically, “I’m so sorry to bother you, Dean, but the man from the printer is here about that new brochure—you said you wanted to have a word with him about those mistakes you found.”

Francis made an exclamation of annoyance. “How tiresome, but, yes, I will see him now—if I don’t I really hate to think what sort of muddle they will make. Excuse me.”

He bustled out of the room. I made a face at David and said, “Goodness, how pompous! I suppose the world might conceivably stop turning on its axis if he wasn’t in charge …”

I got up and went to the desk to look at the papers Francis had got out for me. Some of them were mixed up with the computer printout and I had to sort them out. The roll of computer stuff seemed to be lists of shares, which I took to be part of Francis’s restoration campaign until I saw that one sheet was headed “Francis E. Beaumont: Main Portfolio,” so I supposed these were his own shares. I don’t understand stocks and shares at all—they seem to have very peculiar names, some of them—and I haven’t the faintest idea which are valuable and which are not or why they go up and down and cause such grief and anxiety to people like my friend Rosemary’s husband, Jack. Still, judging from the list, Francis seemed to have a great many of them and it made me really furious to think that he had all these assets and had refused to lend a relatively small amount to his own brother when he knew that it was practically a matter of life and death.

Francis came back into the room and seemed rather irritated that I had picked up the lists from his desk.

“I hope you haven’t disarranged any of the papers there,” he said sternly. “I do like to keep absolute order in all things—one thing out of place and the whole system is in jeopardy!”

I was aware of David stifling a giggle and I quickly apologized.

We went through the lists and I received my instructions.

“Yes, that’s fine,” I said, “I’ll see to that tomorrow.”

“Very well, then, Sheila.” He looked at his watch. “Joan will be waiting for you.”

Having unmistakably received my dismissal, I gathered up all the papers and put them into a shopping bag I had brought with me. I could see that Francis considered it an unworthy receptacle, but I’m really not the sort of person who feels comfortable carrying a briefcase.

“Now then,” Francis said, “will you both be staying for Evensong?”

I looked inquiringly at David, who hesitated for a moment and then said, “Yes, I’d like to, if that’s all right with you, Sheila?”

“Yes, that’ll be fine. Will you come over to the deanery and collect me about five? Good-bye, Francis. I may see you later, then.”

“Splendid, splendid,” Francis said. “Now, David, if you would be kind enough to switch on that electric kettle on the desk beside you, we will have our tea.”

I closed the door carefully behind me, encouraged by the almost benevolent tone in which Francis addressed his brother.

“Wasn’t that David Beaumont?” Monica Woodward demanded. “The actor who used to be in that thing with the detective, on the television.”

“Yes,” I replied. “David’s the dean’s brother.”

“Really! I never knew that! An actor! It seems unsuitable, somehow.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “The church and the stage have much in common, and, after all, the theater had its origins in religious ritual.”

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The sleepy seaside town of Taviscombe has more than its share of gossips [...]]]>

Superfluous Death (ISBN: 978-1-60381-140-8, 194 pp., $12.95), originally published in 1995, is Hazel Holt’s sixth mystery featuring amateur sleuth Mrs. Sheila Malory.

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The sleepy seaside town of Taviscombe has more than its share of gossips and schemers. It also has Mrs. Sheila Malory, a widow whose gift for judging character and unmasking murderers is as impressive as her knowledge of nineteenth-century literature. Mrs. Malory’s sleuthing talents are tested once again when she comes upon the body of one of her friends, a sweet elderly lady. Miss Graham’s death by poison is quite convenient for a local doctor of dubious reputation; the dead woman’s refusal to move thwarted Dr. Cowley’s plans to build a nursing home. But Mrs. Malory knows that nothing is as simple as it seems, especially when it is revealed that Miss Graham left a considerable fortune. Another suspicious death during a fireworks display further complicates matters. These two very different murders—one furtive, the other violent—can’t possibly be related. Or can they?

Hazel Holt was born in Birmingham, England, where she attended King Edward VI High School for Girls. She studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, and went on to work at the International African Institute in London, where she became acquainted with the novelist Barbara Pym, whose biography she later wrote. She also finished one of Pym’s novels after Pym died. Holt has also recently published My Dear Charlotte, a story that uses the actual language of Jane Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra to construct a Regency murder mystery. Holt wrote her first novel in her sixties, and is a leading crime novelist. She is best known for her Mrs. Malory series. Her son is novelist Tom Holt.

Bookstores and libraries can purchase Superfluous Death wholesale through Ingram and Baker & Taylor.

Read on for an excerpt:

‘Miss Graham!’ I called. ‘Are you there? It’s me, Sheila.’

The silence in the flat seemed a very positive thing, oppressive and unnerving, and I had to make a real effort to move forward and open the sitting room door. After the cold wind outside it was pleasantly warm and the flames of the gas fire flickered cosily. Miss Graham was sitting in her usual chair by the fire. Her eyes were shut and she seemed to be sleeping. I went over to her and said, ‘Miss Graham, it’s Sheila. Are you all right?’ But somehow I knew she wouldn’t reply; there was a feeling of emptiness, as if I was the only person in the room, talking to myself.

I moved towards her and, remembering my Red Cross classes, felt for the pulse in her neck, but there was no movement. I took out my handbag mirror and, kneeling down beside her chair, held it to her lips, but the glass was not even faintly misted. As I touched her face, the skin felt slightly chill and clammy and I knew that she was dead.

As I got stiffly to my feet my knees felt wet, but there was nothing to be seen on the carpet, which was fawn, patterned with large dark brown spirals. I bent down and touched the carpet beside the chair and it was wet, though with what I couldn’t tell. The shock suddenly got to me and I sat down quite abruptly on the sofa facing the fire. I was shaking and I suppose it must have taken me a good ten minutes before I got hold of myself and thought about what I had to do.

I went into the hall and found Miss Graham’s address book by the telephone, looked up Dr Cowley’s number and rang the surgery. His receptionist, a nice middle-aged woman whom I knew slightly from the WI, answered.

‘Oh, hello, Miss Watson, it’s Sheila Malory here. I wonder if Dr Cowley could come round to Miss Graham’s, you know, at Kimberley Lodge. I’m afraid she’s—she’s died.’

‘Oh dear.’ The voice at the other end of the line sounded distressed. ‘Dr Cowley will be upset. But I’m afraid Monday’s his day for the Dulverton surgery and he isn’t usually back until quite late. Dr Barton always covers for Dr Cowley on his Dulverton days and he’s actually here in the surgery now so perhaps I’d better ask him to go round to Kimberley Lodge. Are you there yourself? Can you let him in?’

‘Oh, yes please, that would be best.’ I was relieved that I would not have to face Dr Cowley in these circumstances. ‘And yes, I’m in Miss Graham’s flat. Actually I found her. It was quite a shock.’

‘Oh, that must have been most unpleasant for you! Don’t you worry, Mrs Malory, I’ll send him round right away.’

While I was by the telephone it occurred to me that I should ring Miss Graham’s nephew Ronnie. As her only close relative he ought to be told at once. I found the number of the shop and after a while a girl’s voice answered.

‘Can I speak to Mr Graham, please?’ I said.

‘I’m sorry, he’s not in today,’ she said. ‘Can I take a message?’

‘It’s really very urgent,’ I persisted. ‘Do you know where I can get in touch with him?’

‘Well, actually,’ the girl’s interest was aroused and she sounded more animated, ‘he’s got this flu thing that’s going about and he’s at home. You should be able to get him there.’ She gave me the number and then I suddenly thought of something.

‘Perhaps I could speak to Mrs Graham,’ I said, ‘to save bothering him when he’s not well.’

‘Oh, she’s gone to Taunton to see one of our suppliers. She won’t be back this afternoon.’

I thanked the girl and dialled Ronnie’s home number. The phone rang but there was no reply. Presumably he was in bed and it seemed rather unkind to make him get up when he was feeling rotten just to hear upsetting news. I decided to wait until later when Carol would be home, and put down the receiver.

The silence closed round me again and I began to walk about the flat simply to create some kind of movement. Consciously I avoided the sitting room; I didn’t feel I could face the still figure by the fire. I opened the door of the bedroom and looked inside. Everything was immaculately tidy. Even in her eighties and hampered by ill health, Miss Graham kept up the standard of housekeeping that she had evidently learned from her rather formidable mother. The bed was covered with a fine patchwork quilt (I remembered Miss Graham working on it over the years). The dressing table, with its embroidered mats, was innocent of any cosmetics and held only a silver-backed brush and mirror, a photograph of old Mrs Graham, a bottle of Yardley’s lavender water and an old-fashioned ring-tree. There was a kettle and a tea-tray by the bed, a book (Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier) and a bottle of tablets. I wandered out into the kitchen. Here too everything was spick and span. The work surfaces were clear except for matching storage containers and a wooden bread bin, so unlike my own clutter of jars, half-empty packets and old cat and dog dishes! The sink was spotless, the dishcloth wrung out and carefully spread over the taps and a washed cup, saucer and plate upended to dry on the draining board. A sudden humming noise made me jump, but it was just the motor of the refrigerator starting up. While I was still in this nervous state the front doorbell rang and I greeted Dr Barton rather incoherently. He stared at me curiously as I haltingly explained how I had let myself into the flat and had found Miss Graham dead.

I’ve known Dr Barton for years. He was one of Peter’s clients, but neither of us liked him very much, since he is an austere, humourless man, with a precise manner. He’s as well known in the town for his finicky obsession with detail, with a meticulous adherence to the last letter of the law, as he is for his meanness and love of money. It was presumably the latter that had brought him in to cover for Dr Cowley, a man whom he personally disliked and whose methods he had been known to criticize. Glad though I was not to have had to face the oleaginous Dr Cowley in this distressing situation, I felt chilled and repelled by the sight of Dr Barton’s gaunt figure and severe manner.

He cut short my disjointed remarks with a terse, ‘Yes, yes,’ and going towards the sitting room said, ‘She’s in here, is she?’

I followed him in reluctantly.

‘Has that fire been on for long?’ he asked me sharply. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘It was on when I got here and the room was quite warm then.’

He moved across and felt for the pulse as I had, and laid his hand on her forehead.

‘Difficult to tell how long she’s been dead, since the room is so warm.’ He looked at me accusingly, as if it was somehow my fault.

‘She was alive this morning,’ I said. ‘She telephoned to ask if I’d come and see her.’

‘Yes. Right.’ Dr Barton began examining the body so I went out into the kitchen again and wandered aimlessly about, peering into the refrigerator (almost empty), opening and shutting drawers (splendidly tidy), turning a dripping tap off more tightly, and generally fidgeting about until Dr Barton called to me from the sitting room.

‘Mrs Malory,’ he said as I went into the room, ‘do you know if Miss Graham had seen Dr Cowley in the last few days?’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘I shouldn’t think so. I mean, she hadn’t been ill or anything. She sounded perfectly all right this morning. I suppose it was a heart attack?’

‘That I am not in a position to say,’ he replied reprovingly. ‘But if she didn’t see her general practitioner within the last forty-eight hours then there will have to be a post-mortem.’

He spoke with a certain grim satisfaction, as if he was delighted that Dr Cowley would be inconvenienced by the bureaucratic process.

‘There is no need for you to remain,’ he continued. ‘No doubt you have things you wish to attend to. I will do all that is necessary here.’

‘Oh, well, thank you, that would be kind. I’ve got the dogs outside and they’ll be getting a bit restless, you know how it is …’ My voice trailed away in the face of his barely concealed contempt for people who kept animals and I picked up my handbag and shopping bag, in the bottom of which the now unneeded pot of jam rolled about forlornly, and prepared to leave.

‘Just one more thing,’ Dr Barton said. ‘Are there any relatives?’

‘Just a nephew,’ I replied. ‘I tried to ring him while I was waiting for you, but he’s got flu. I’ll try again this evening when his wife’s in.’

‘He should be informed. Thank you, Mrs Malory.’

Thus dismissed, I made my way slowly out of the flat. The air struck cold but I welcomed the boisterousness of the wind as something positive and alive. I was shaken and upset, finding poor Miss Graham like that, and chilled by Dr Barton’s bleakness and lack of warmth and human sympathy. As I approached the car the two dogs started to bark and when I opened the door they greeted me with a frenzied excitement that suddenly brought tears to my eyes. I drove down to the sea front and we all three ran like mad things as fast as we could along the beach.

Murder on Campus (ISBN: 978-1-60381-138-5, $12.95, 288 pp.), originally published in 1994, is the fifth of Hazel Holt’s Mrs. Malory mysteries.

Click here to see the redesigned editions of the first four Mrs. Malory mysteries.  All five books (and the two to come: Superfluous Death and Death of a [...]]]>

Murder on Campus, or Detective in Residence

Murder on Campus (ISBN: 978-1-60381-138-5, $12.95, 288 pp.), originally published in 1994, is the fifth of Hazel Holt’s Mrs. Malory mysteries.

Click here to see the redesigned editions of the first four Mrs. Malory mysteries.  All five books (and the two to come: Superfluous Death and Death of a Dean) are available at the standard discount/returnable through Ingram and Baker & Taylor. Bookstores in the UK can now also order from Ingram at the standard discount.

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Superfluous Death will be available in January and Death of a Dean in February, 2012.

A small university in Pennsylvania has engaged Mrs. Sheila Malory to teach a course on Nineteenth-Century Women writers, and so, with some reluctance, the widow leaves her home in the charming seaside village of Taviscombe to experience academic life in America. The semester will prove even more challenging than she thought, for no sooner does she arrive than a colleague is found with a bullet in his head. The victim is particularly nasty, a man many would like to see dead. Lieutenant Landis, the lead investigator, just happens to be divorced, available, and eager to discuss Shakespeare. When he asks Mrs. Malory for help, he puts her in a difficult position. Should she assist him in his investigation, even if her efforts encourage his romantic interest? Sheila, who can’t resist a good murder mystery, forges ahead. What she discovers will make her regret that she ever left Taviscombe.

Hazel Holt was born in Birmingham, England, where she attended King Edward VI High School for Girls. She studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, and went on to work at the International African Institute in London, where she became acquainted with the novelist Barbara Pym, whose biography she later wrote. She also finished one of Pym’s novels after Pym died. Holt has also recently published My Dear Charlotte, a story that uses the actual language of Jane Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra to construct a Regency murder mystery. Holt wrote her first novel in her sixties, and is a leading crime novelist. She is best known for her Mrs. Malory series. Her son is novelist Tom Holt.

Keep reading for an excerpt:

‘Would you like to see upstairs? It’s a fine house in its own right. Not old by British standards, of course, but very typical of the large mansions being built by the great industrialists of the day.’

I love looking over houses, large or small, and this was a really remarkable one. Upstairs, most of the twenty or so bedrooms were now divided up into offices and study rooms for the Research Center, but Theo Portman’s office still had its original splendour.

‘It was Mrs Whittier’s boudoir,’ he said, ‘and a bit feminine—though not quite as frilly and fussy as Mrs Theodore Roosevelt’s boudoir at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Have you seen that house yet? You really should. But I kept the Louis XV furniture and that Greuze and that particularly fine Nattier—oh and the Van Dyck, of course.’

Hanging behind his desk was a portrait of a seventeenth-century gentleman who bore an extraordinary resemblance to Theo Portman himself, small pointed beard and all.

Linda and I exclaimed delightedly and he smiled with pleasure.

‘My little joke,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t resist it.’

‘It must have needed an enormous staff,’ I said, ‘to keep all this up.’

‘Indeed. Practically the whole of the top floor was servants’ quarters. We keep the computers and so on up there. Would you like to have a look?’

We ascended a smaller and plainer staircase than the handsome, ornately carved one leading up from the great hall. The top floor was a warren of corridors, the labels on whose doors proclaimed them to be study and photocopying rooms or, more simply, ‘Administration’. Theo Portman opened a few doors to reveal an impressive array of electronic equipment, which had Linda asking eager questions. She’s a terrific computer enthusiast and actually seems to understand them and, I must admit, when I see her making an index, say, on her own machine I do see the point of them and feel very much that I’m living in the Stone Age with my own cards-in-a-shoe-box method!

‘Oh yes,’ Theo said, ‘there is something up here you might be interested to see.’

We went down yet another corridor and he opened a door into a large room which, in addition to the usual complement of computers, had walls lined with shelves, laden with files.

‘This,’ he said, ‘used to be the linen room. All those shelves used to hold linen. Smell the wood—it’s all cedar, anti-moth, you see. And this,’ he unwound a sort of roller affair, ‘was how they stored those enormous damask tablecloths, so that they didn’t crease.’

‘How gorgeous,’ I said, sniffing at the wood. ‘The cedar smell is still very strong. And what marvellous quality it all is and how beautifully made, everything just so and splendidly planned!’

‘Oh, yes,’ Theo said, ‘a lot of thought went into the smallest detail.’ He moved to the far comer of the room towards what seemed like a couple of enormous chests.

‘These were blanket chests, also lined with cedar, of course. You see, this looks like a drawer, but actually it swings outwards on a pivot just below waist level so you don’t have to stoop to put things in.’ He put his hand on one of the chests, pulled gently and the side section swung out revealing a deep box.

But the box wasn’t empty. Lying inside it was the body of a man.

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Available in Kindle.

A woman falls from her fifteenth-story window … was [...]]]>

Coffeetown’s newest release, Truth Be Veiled (242 pp, $16.95/paper, $24.95/cloth, ISBN: 978-1-60381-080-7), by Joel Cohen and Carla T. Main, is a fascinating examination of legal ethics as well as a compelling page-turner about a complex murder case.

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Available in Kindle.

A woman falls from her fifteenth-story window … was she pushed? Her husband, a high profile executive, stands accused of the murder. He is counting on renowned criminal lawyer Justin Steele to clear his name. But Justin suspects there is more to the story. What is the truth in this case, and how far does the law and personal conscience allow it to be concealed—or revealed—so Justin can win an acquittal? Truth Be Veiled is a riveting play-by-play of the process leading up to trial, told by a criminal lawyer and master storyteller.

“The original version of this novel was conceived to teach law students about ethics,” Cohen says.  “However, folks, including students, were so enthusiastic, I decided to enlist Carla’s help and turn it into a bona fide murder mystery.  It’s difficult for the layperson to imagine how easily the wheels of justice can get mired in technical issues and layers of truth and falsehood. Anyone who cares about justice and the law will hopefully be intrigued by an insider’s account.”

“Truth Be Veiled was a pleasure to work on,” says Main. “Joel and I have known each other since I was a summer associate at Stroock, some 25 years ago. So when he explained this project to me, I was thrilled to be a part of its development. The challenge was to create a plot that turns on how the characters confront and deal with the law in all their varied roles as advocate, defendant and investigator.”

Joel Cohen, a former prosecutor, practices white-collar criminal defense at New York’s Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, LLP. He teaches legal ethics at Fordham Law School, lectures widely and authors columns on law and legal ethics for the New York Law Journal and Law.com.

Carla T. Main is an award-winning legal journalist who writes about law and society. She is the author of Bulldozed (Encounter Books, 2007), an examination of the impact of eminent domain development on communities.

To obtain a discussion/teaching guide for this book, please contact info@coffeetownpress.com.

Truth Be Veiled is available in Kindle ($6.95) and print editions on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and Amazon.fr.  It can also be ordered through Coffeetownpress.com. Bookstores will soon be able to order hardcover and paperback editions through the Baker and Taylor catalog. In the meantime, please contact info@coffeetownpress.com.

Praise for Truth Be Veiled …

“Truth Be Veiled is a compelling journey of a criminal defense lawyer with a client accused of murder. Author Joel Cohen navigates this dangerous terrain of truth, morals and legal ethics brilliantly. We know, because he’s been there.”

—Nicholas Pileggi, author of many books and screenplays, including Goodfellas (Wiseguys) and Casino

“Truth Be Veiled takes legal ethics out of the textbooks and into the real world, illustrating the subtle conflicts between morals and ethics in criminal defense work.  The reader is left to wonder, like the book’s hero, lawyer Justin Steele, whether the truth matters in our criminal justice system.”

—Barry Scheck, co-director of The Innocence Project at The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

“In the context of a highly readable legal thriller, Joel Cohen plumbs the depths of ethical issues that lie at the core of every criminal defense practice but are rarely discussed or debated.”

—Gerald L. Shargel, New York Criminal Defense Lawyer and Professor at Brooklyn Law School

“The fictional Justin Steele, created by criminal defense attorney and adjunct law professor Joel Cohen, uses the Socratic Method to deftly guide his young associate through the perilous intersections of law, morality and ethics. This fascinating murder mystery will have readers guessing all the way to the end.

“While a great read for anyone, it is a ‘must read’ for those starting a career in criminal justice, either as prosecutor or defense attorney.”

—Charles J. Hynes is the District Attorney of Kings County, New York, and author of the novel, Triple Homicide (St. Martin’s Press, 2007)

“Truth Be Veiled sheds light on what people in daily contact with our criminal justice system know: that it often fails in ways that cause individual suffering beyond belief, and sometimes even utterly wrongful convictions. Joel Cohen shines in the telling of the defense of George Robbins and his counselor, Justin Steele, and movingly portrays how a defendant feels when he is on trial for murder.”

—Martin H. Tankleff, now working as a paralegal in a New York law firm after serving more than 17 years in New York prisons after his wrongful conviction

Keep reading for an excerpt:

George heard a thud and a sickening cracking sound, as if someone far away had broken a very large egg. Adrianna lay in the alleyway below. All was quiet. She was dead.

George had stood by the window, transfixed. All around him the scene erupted into chaos. The police arrived, and an ambulance. Their neighbor, Ruth Munsell—the building busybody—had watched the tragedy unfold. Or at least she said so, since everyone knew that the view from her apartment into the Robbins’ was obstructed. Mrs. Munsell’s apartment was across the air shaft from theirs and one floor up. And thank Heaven for that, George had often thought, or she would have made watching Adrianna and him a full-time hobby.

Mrs. Munsell told the police: “George Robbins had his hands on his wife as she fell from the window.” … She told the detectives that she heard a man and a woman screaming from the direction of the Robbins’ apartment just before Adrianna fell. She wouldn’t budge from this statement.

The police found no outward sign that Adrianna was doing anything with the plant—no gardening tools, no dirt on her hands, nothing to back up George’s version of the events. They asked George if Adrianna suffered from vertigo. He answered them honestly: “No.” And then they asked him the oddest question. ‘How many flower pots did you keep on the ledge?’ Why would anyone care about such a thing at a time like that? he wondered.

No one else saw the fall or heard her crash to the ground.

The death of J. D. Salinger left me feeling that I had lost a boyhood friend. Salinger himself was never a personal friend of mine, but his creation Holden Caulfield was. Holden was one of the very few who understood my young self, who shared my amusement in the sound of a [...]]]>

Thank you, Mr. Salinger

The death of J. D. Salinger left me feeling that I had lost a boyhood friend. Salinger himself was never a personal friend of mine, but his creation Holden Caulfield was. Holden was one of the very few who understood my young self, who shared my amusement in the sound of a loud fart in a quiet chapel, my sadness that young girls sometimes become hookers, my hatred of pomposity in all its smiling faces, my fear both of school and of leaving school, my desire to protect little children from falling off a cliff, my dream of someday escaping, like Thoreau, to the safety of a little cabin in the woods. In writing about Holden, Salinger was writing about me.

During the two years I worked on A Reader’s Companion to J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye I came to understand just how thoroughly Salinger and Caulfield are one and the same person. I never met J. D. Salinger in person, never made the pilgrimage to New Hampshire to knock on his door, never even sent him a fan letter. I respected his desire to be left alone. But I came to know him through his writing about me and my writing about him.

Salinger wrote one really fine book. The Catcher in the Rye sold enough copies for the next sixty years that he never really had to “work” again. He could afford to live and then die in his isolated cabin in the woods. He is gone, but we will always have Holden Caulfield, just as we will always have Huckleberry Finn. Thank you, Mr. Salinger. We’re beholden to you.

–Peter Beidler, Author of A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.

Taking a Walk Through J. D. Salinger’s New York

Walking in Holden’s Footsteps

Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, is one of the most often read, often taught, and often criticized novels in the history of literature.

For the first time since 1898, readers can experience Henry James’s eerie The Turn of the Screw the way his original readers did, [...]]]>

By Henry James, Edited by Peter G. Beidler

Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, is one of the most often read, often taught, and often criticized novels in the history of literature.

For the first time since 1898, readers can experience Henry James’s eerie The Turn of the Screw the way his original readers did, as a twelve-part weekly serial. The Coffeetown Press edition showcases the novel as it first appeared, complete with provocative illustrations by John La Farge and Eric Pape, in Collier’s Weekly.

This unique edition, with an analytical introduction by Peter G. Beidler, will of course be valuable to scholars. It will be particularly useful, however, for undergraduate classroom use.

It allows readers to experience first-hand the suspense generated by the week-by-week grouping of chapters.

It also lets them read the young governess’s story of her dangerous encounter with prowling spirits as it first appeared, before James made the 500-odd changes in wording he introduced later. After reading Beidler’s detailed appendix analyzing all of James’s revisions, readers will see that in many ways this earliest version of The Turn of the Screw was James’s best.

Peter G. Beidler spent most of his long teaching career as the Lucy G. Moses Distinguished Professor of English at Lehigh University. He has published widely on Henry James and especially on The Turn of the Screw. His Ghosts, Demons, and Henry James: The Turn of the Screw at the Turn of the Century came out in 1989. He co-edited (with Kimberly C. Reed) the Modern Language Association’s Approaches to Teaching Henry James’s Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw (2005). In addition, he edited all three editions, with associated cultural and critical materials, of The Turn of the Screw for the popular Bedford Books series Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism (1992, 2004, 2010). For that Bedford series he presented James’s last (1908) version. For this Coffeetown Press edition he presents for the first time in more than a century James’s first (1898) version as it was serialized in Collier’s Weekly.

Beidler was named National Professor of the Year in 1983 by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation. He was named Fulbright Professor at Sichuan University in Chengdu, mainland China, for 1987-88, and the Robert Foster Cherry Visiting Distinguished Teaching Professor at Baylor University, for 1995-96. He now lives with his wife Anne in Seattle, WA.

 

The Turn of the Screw (1908 Version)

By Henry James (Introduction by David Gorman)

This Coffeetown Press edition of Henry James’s most famous, most widely read, and most frequently taught story presents the text as it appeared in 1908, with the author’s final revisions. The Turn of the Screw, first published in serial format in 1898, is the chilling tale of a young woman who accepts a job as governess—that is, as teacher—of two lovely young children who seem to be haunted by the spirits of a former governess and her lover, both now dead. David Gorman’s introduction is designed to help first-time readers of the tale by providing a brief historical backdrop to this tale of a haunted house and by laying out the central critical controversy that surrounds it: whether this ghost story is not about ghosts at all, or rather a probing of the psyche of a narrator who madly imagines that two ghosts threaten her young charges.

The Roving Bee or, A Peep into Many Hives

By Elizabeth Pope Whately, Edited by Peter G. Beidler

Almost totally forgotten since it was published in 1855, Elizabeth Pope Whately’s The Roving Bee is now available for the first time in more than a century and a half. This novel explores in realistic detail the life of an Irish governess. Not only is The Roving Bee a good read, but it reveals in rich cultural detail the tensions in nineteenth-century Ireland, especially those between the rich and the poor and between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The governess Dora Leighton is the “roving bee” of the title. As she “peeps” into many “hives”—the households where she is employed to teach—we readers peep also. Through Dora’s eyes we see highlighted the class differences, disagreements about making the Bible available to the people, the prominence of money, the arrogance of the newly rich, and the frustrations of the eternal poor. We observe the domestic details of everyday life in various nineteenth-century families. We watch gender issues work themselves out. We even hear the Irish dialect of some of the speakers. In his introduction, editor Peter G. Beidler argues that Henry James had probably read The Roving Bee, and that his having done so influenced in interesting ways two of his novellas, The Pupil, published in 1891, and The Turn of the Screw, first published in 1898.

Coffeetown Press is proud to announce the release of My Dear Charlotte, by Hazel Holt.  My Dear Charlotte is a British myrder mystery that takes place in the Regency period.  Unlike other popular Regency mysteries and romances, My Dear Charlotte is based on the letters of Jane Austen to [...]]]>

My Dear Charlotte, by Hazel Holt

Coffeetown Press is proud to announce the release of My Dear Charlotte, by Hazel Holt.  My Dear Charlotte is a British myrder mystery that takes place in the Regency period.  Unlike other popular Regency mysteries and romances, My Dear Charlotte is based on the letters of Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra.  While the story is new, the details having to do with balls, dinners, and other social events are given in the words of Jane Austen herself, making this a historical mystery novel of extraordinary veracity.

This thrilling Regency murder mystery will appeal to all fans of mystery novels.  It will also be welcomed by readers of Jane Austen because this unique novel is constructed using the actual language of Jane Austen’s letters.  It’s great fun, and an important new work by the renowned author of the Mrs. Malory Mysteries.  Here’s an excerpt:

Of course it cannot be denied that Mr Woodstock himself will lead a happier life without his formidable spouse, though I do not believe that he could have summoned up the courage to dispose of her!

Mr Rivers will be glad to be rid of one who would have put obstacles in the way of his plans for the Barbados estate, but I do not think that may be considered a sufficient reason for an honourable man to take a life.

Mrs West, however, seems to me to lack such scruples if they stood in the way of her daughter’s advancement. I do not at present see how she could have brought about Mrs Woodstock’s demise, but no doubt, if I give my mind to it, I may presently think of something.

Poor John coachman also had reason to wish his mistress dead, since his whole happiness (and that of Sarah) depended upon keeping his position at Holcombe and if he had been turned away without a character his case would have been miserable indeed.

So you see, there are a number of people who will be happy at Mrs Woodstock’s death. Perhaps I should add myself to the list for the sake of those hours of tedium and the many irritations she has subjected me to!