Haunted by the zeitgeist of self-publishing, I’ve just put up my first novel, Exchange Alley, on Kindle for the low, low introductory price of just 99 cents. The novel was originally published in 1997 by Warner Books, was a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection, got a starred review in Publishers Weekly (don’t ask me who my non-existent co-author, “Patrick C. Walsh,” is; it’s a mistake) and — for reasons that will quickly become clear — became a cult novel in the years after its first appearance. From the PW review:
The final 100 pages of this book offer a series of explosive surprises, from the identity of Ekdahl’s killer to the truth about Byrne’s own heritage. There isn’t much Walsh doesn’t know about the JFK assassination, and the background research for this virtuoso novel feels thorough. Weaving from the worst of the Russian prison camps to Manhattan’s elite European demimonde, from Brighton Beach’s vicious Russian mobs to Little Italy’s complacently murderous families, Walsh orchestrates a gripping tale of the horrors that were set in motion the day a president was murdered.
Today, over at Big Hollywood, I have a piece on the origins of the novel; tomorrow and Friday we’ll be posting excerpts, including the opening chapter and a sequence set inside the notorious KGB prison camp on Sakhalin Island — not a place you want to visit on your next Far Eastern vacation.
Please do not download if you are a) squeamish, b) easily offended, c) politically correct, and d) don’t care a fig for police procedurals, international thrillers, the Kennedy assassination, sexy spies, exotic sexual practices, the Manhattan demimonde, Russian and Italian gangsters, the underworld of Muscovy, the New York City Police Department, the old Soviet Union, psychiatrists, blondes, Danes, BMWs, the FBI, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades.
Now that I have your attention, and with those caveats — enjoy.