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Burke crafted another haunting tour de force with Purple Cane Road, not his latest Dave Robicheaux novel, but one of his best. It is laced with the poetic, evocative imagery and fully fleshed-out characters, often hacked from the seamiest strata of real life, that typify his work. And it sets the New Iberia detective on a driven course to find the true story behind his mother’s death. Complex subplots provide additional twists and turns as Robicheaux gropes his way toward a s

(Editor’s Note: I apologize. Since this issue of The Standard is so late in going live, this event was held this last weekend. Hopefully Ken Fermoyle can report on it in the next Standard issue. I’m sure it went very well indeed, as always.) As if the location wasn’t enough, Left Coast Crime 2004 organizers report that the February 19-22 event in Monterey, CA will feature Walter Mosley and Sharan Newman as Guests of Honor. Toastmistress will be Gillian Roberts (Judy Greber) a

One of the most pernicious knids in the last several hundred years of bookselling has been odoriferous books. As all booksellers know, most books stink, but some of them go so far as to smell. It breaks the heart to tear into a lovely milk crate of potentially mortgage- paying volumes only to discover that they have been stored in the back of a disused lavatory along with the owners’ collection of rare molds & spores. There are many makeshift methods to drive odors out of boo

By: Robin Gutterman robin@titlesdirect.com Database URLs: http://www.MyOwnBookshop.com and http://www.BookTrakker.com TitlesDirect.com, Inc., the parent company of MyOwnBookshop.com and the developer of BookTrakker Pro, is pleased to report a number of site changes and recent developments. In the forefront is an announcement concerning SmartSearch, new technology that produces accurate booksearch results. Introducing SmartSearch Technology TitlesDirect.com has developed new

Awards for mystery novels and their authors abound! Probably the best known, and most coveted, of those given in the United States are the Edgar All Poe Awards. Chosen by members of the Mystery Writers of America since 1945, they are more commonly known as the “Edgars,” The Macavity Awards differ from most mystery novel honors in two important respects. First, readers select the nominees and winners, not a committee or professionals in the field. Each year, members of Mystery

What’s most interesting in the case is what impact it may have on other authors, particularly those in the crime and sci-fi categories. If Activision wins, will this mean game creators can steal characters and ideas from novels with impunity? The film and TV industries traditionally have paid good money for rights to use authors’ works, never mind that the final product often bears little resemblance to the written version. “Since news [of the suit] broke, we have received li

By: Jim Arner jarnersr@wyomerc.com As TomFolio.com, the web-site owned/operated by ABookCoOp, enters the fourth year of operation, we wish to announce several recent enhancements to the site. Sticky Pages – TomFolio members can use the site as a virtual private web-based bookstore. You can provide the customer with a search form that searches only your listings on the TomFolio site. Very useful for those dealers who do not operate their own private websites. Auto-Category Di

By: Ann Brebner & Paul Anderson marketing@booksandcollectibles.com.au Books & Collectibles offers all the normal book listing services available on the internet: searching via Bookfinder, Addall and BuyUsed; seamless search facilities via your web site; secure ordering; free database for listing; and promotions. Books & Collectibles also offers to its dealers the ability to on-sell all the 3 million books listed on our site. It works like this: On your home page, Books & Col