How to buy Shooter in the Shadows and support your bookshop

My new book, Shooter in the Shadows, is out in two days, with e-book publication on Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo and Google Play, and print handled by Amazon.

This does not mean you can’t buy it through your local book store. I’m as keen as anyone to see stores large and small prosper through these extraordinary times. So the publication of Shooter in the Shadows, and any other book I publish this way, will always, on the print side, include expanded distribution. This means it can be bought wholesale through normal distribution channels by both bookshops and libraries.

All you need do is give the store the ISBN number of the title so they can order it. The ISBN of Shooter in the Shadows in print is 978-1-8380897-1-9. Note — the ISBN numbers for e-book and audio editions are different so it’s important you pass on the right one.

Why am I publishing this way? Simple. I am already contracted with an existing publisher for a book which is due to come out in hardback next year and paperback the next (details of which will come closer to publication). The way publishing is right now this means I’m not going to get more than one bite at that particular market until 2022 in hardback or so.

Shooter in the Shadows is ready to go, as will be my book on the Appian Way very soon. I’d rather not wait years to get them out there — and from the feedback I’m receiving from readers you’d rather not wait too. But I’m also determined that I don’t cut out libraries and book stores (though obviously it’s up to them whether they want to order it). They’re facing tough times like pretty much everyone else in this business right now (and lots of other people too). I’m not going to deny them an opportunity to take their share of the print book if they want to order it.

In the meantime, here’s to Saturday, a publication date fixed to the Redentore festival in Venice which forms part of the book’s plot. Though this year it will be very different to the Redentore featured in the book.

Here’s one of the advance reviews from Bookbub…

It’s really masterly done how the doubt and suspicions slowly creep into the story. At first, you believe that the writer has done nothing wrong but being overconfident in his findings, then you start looking for another possible killer until they lead to a chilling realisation. And every time you think “that’s it, we know all now” there’s another twist or turn that steer you in another direction. The end is really mind-blowing. I had expected early on that the teacher must have had a female lover as well, but the different corners the story turns after that was established, aren’t foreseeable in a million years. It’s really creepy and baffling at times. Well done! It’s more than mere crime fiction; it certainly deserves the title of a psychological thriller as well.

If you read Shooter in the Shadows do please consider placing a review on Amazon. These go a long way to determining some kind of algorithm which affects the way the books are presented for sale (not that I understand it but I am told it’s more important than it might appear).

And here’s looking forward to some time when we can all get back to something approaching normality.

Oh, and Petunia the sheep asked me to remind you she has a cameo role in the lockdown video trailer.