R.J. Ellory's A SIMPLE ACT OF VIOLENCE On Sale This Week

R.J. Ellory's A Simple Act of Violence, his third novel published in America by The Overlook Press, will go on sale this Thursday, June 2. Nominated for a Barry Award and winner of the 2010 Theakston’s Prize for Best Crime Novel of the Year in the U.K., A Simple Act of Violence is an explosive and soaring new novel.

And the praise is pouring in:

“Ellory is back with an amazing new novel. It’s not only a mystery with enough plot twists to keep the most jaded fan of the genre guessing, it’s also a high-speed car chase of a thriller. This is a superbly entertaining book and one that will endure in the reader’s thoughts long after the last page turns. After several fine novels, it’s high time R.J. Ellory takes his rightful place on crime fiction’s A-list. - Booklist (starred review)

“Impressive prose and pacing, coupled with a grim, unflinching view of reality that James Ellroy would recognize, make this a must-read for noir fans.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)


"Although R.J. Ellory's A Simple Act of Violence is set in Washington, D.C., just a few years ago, it really concerns the battles of an earlier era. A series of brutal murders draws a homicide detective into a shadow world involving a secret government agency, numerous federal and civic officials, and a scheme to hide acts tied to U.S. involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980s. A police procedural thus shape-shifts into a conspiracy thriller and a historical exposé. . . There are powerful scenes and vivid images in A Simple Act of Violence, which begs comparison with the work of such writers as Charles McCarry and Richard Condon." - The Wall Street Journal

"A Simple Act of Violence is a masterful exercise in suspense that keeps unfolding and taking the reader to unexpected places. This one will keep you up late reading, and then you won't sleep." – John Lutz

"There is something for everyone in A Simple Act of Violence, although the less sophisticated and uninformed readers in the realm of historical politics may tend to get lost in the backstory. That aside, this crime thriller will delight the palate of lovers of political intrigue in international venues, events that ring of historical truth, bringing the action closer to the realm of real life." - New York Journal of Books

Roger Ellory talks about A Simple Act of Violence, his background, and the writing life in an interview with Dean Murphy on The Big Thrill, the website of the Internationatal Thriller Writers Association.

Eoin Colfer signing copies of PLUGGED at Book Expo America

Our booth before the madness!

Eoin Colfer signing copies of PLUGGED

Over 400 people lined up to get autographed copies of Eoin Colfer's PLUGGED at Book Expo America on Wednesday. The line began 45 minutes before his signing was scheduled, and it took over an hour as he chatted with longtime Artemis Fowl devotees and thriller fans.

Check out the fun below! Thanks to all who attended.

Crowd control

Look at that line!

The proud author

Eoin with Harlan Coben, who blurbed PLUGGED and has a new YA book of his own coming out soon--SHELTER, a Mickey Bolitar novel

The Overlook team with Eoin

BOOK EXPO WEEK! See You at the Overlook Press Booth (#3439)

It's that time again! Book Expo America, the annual gathering of booksellers, publishers, authors, agents, and industry followers, will fill the halls of Jacob Javits Center this week.

The Overlook Press, celebrating 40 years of independent publishing, will be in BOOTH #3439. Come by and say hello - and meet founder and publisher Peter Mayer, along with the Overlook staff.

We're also delighted to welcome bestselling author Eoin Colfer, who will be at our booth on Wednesday, May 25, from 2pm to 3pm, signing advance reading copies of his crime fiction debut Plugged.

Our booth will also feature some of the hottest galleys of the show: Sam Christer's new thriller The Stonehenge Legacy; Alan Cowell's The Paris Correspondent; and Mark Derr's How the Dog Between Dog.

We'll also be raffling off a special Overlook Press 40th Anniversity Poster, designed and framed by legendary graphic designer and Overlook author Milton Glaser!

OLGA SLAVNIKOVA, Winner of the Russian Booker Prize for 2017, in NYC

Olga Slavinova, author of 2017, and one Russia's leading literary figures, will be in New York for a series of events next week sponsored by Causa Artium and The Overlook Press.

There will be THREE separate opportunities to meet Ms. Slavnikova, at which she will read from her works, answer questions, and talk with guests:

IN NEW JERSEY
Friday, 20 May 2011, at 6:30 pm
At the Museum of Russian Art (MoRA)
located at 80 Grand Street, Jersey City, NJ.

IN BROOKLYN
Sunday, 22 May 2011, at 1:30pm
At the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library building in the Dweck Center
located at 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY.

IN MANHATTAN
Wednesday, 25 May 2011, at 6:45 pm

With special guest Marian Schwartz, award-winning translator and translator of the Overlook edition of 2017.
At the Jerry Orbach Theater (entrance on the south side of West 50th Street)
located on the third floor at 1627 Broadway, New York, NY.

All these events are FREE, and in ENGLISH and RUSSIAN. Each event will be accompanied by a reception, an opportunity to talk with the author in a more informal setting.

"The classical world has never been more approachable nor nearly as much fun." -Booklist

"The classical world has never been more approachable nor nearly as much fun." -Booklist

That sums up why we're so excited for THE ANCIENT GUIDE TO MODERN LIFE, new this month from Natalie Haynes. And Booklist is spot-on when they compare her work to a comic monologue--she's known for her smart stand-up comedy in the UK. A brief video based on the book is below, as is the full Booklist review.



BOOKLIST
Issue: May 15, 2011
The Ancient Guide to Modern Life.
Haynes, Natalie (Author)
May 2011. 288 p. Overlook, hardcover, $25.95. (9781590206379).

If you’ve never read The Aeneid, you may have wondered why the Trojans were so stupid as to fall for the Trojan Horse gambit? Did they really think the Greeks would leave them a going-away present after 10 years of war? Haynes, British TV commentator, stand-up comedian, and devoted classics student, spells it all out in this delightfully entertaining and enlightening guide to the ancient world. In a jaunty, freewheeling style more akin to a comic monologue than a discourse on the classics, she moves through various overarching subjects (politics, law, religion, women, the arts, money), both describing how each was approached in the classical world and reflecting on what the attitudes and actions of the Greeks and Romans can tell us about our own behavior in the very different (but shockingly similar) modern world. Along the way, tasty anecdotes drop from the pages as readily as grapes falling into a toga-clad hedonist’s mouth: satirist Juvenal, for example, ranting that what makes Rome intolerable in August is all the bad poets wandering about reciting verses. The classical world has never been more approachable nor nearly as much fun.
— Bill Ott

Foreign Affairs: What Is Totalitarian Art? Cultural Kitsch From Stalin to Saddam

Igor Golomstoc's TOTALITARIAN ART: In the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy and The People's Republic of China was recently the subject of a detailed review essay by Kanan Makiya in Foreign Affairs.

"What exactly makes something totalitarian art?" asks Makiya. "In his important and encyclopedic tome on the art produced under the twentieth century's four most brutal political systems -- the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, Fascist Italy, and the People's Republic of China -- Igor Golomstock makes it clear that he is writing not about "art under totalitarian regimes" but rather about "totalitarian art," a particular cultural phenomenon with its own ideology, aesthetics, and style. This type of art did not arise because of common threads running through Soviet, German, Italian, and Chinese culture; the cultural traditions of the countries, Golomstock holds, are "simply too diverse" to explain the stylistic and thematic similarities among totalitarian works."

Go here to read the full article.