I've been talking to my colleague at
BalonaBooks, Joaquin Peralta. He's had a major challenge for the last six months because the publisher asked him to write a new story based on an established Balona character (Joseph Oliver Kuhl). How would you like to write a story using Dostoyevsky's character Raskolnikov? Probably fun, but Joaquin has sweated over this one as although he has edited lots of books, this is his first as author.
The book is finished, will be in galleys out to reviewers in late July, and will be on the market in January 2008. Joaquin has titled it An Almost Private Eye as the story features Joe Kuhl in his "student" mode in which he is supposedly slaving away to qualify for his private eye certificate.
If you've ever read a BalonaBook with Joseph Kuhl in it, you know that Joe is any teachers's bad dream. He doesn't attend classes, he cheats, he lies, he daydreams, he brags, he doesn't do his homework, he expects good grades. Hey, he sounds like some of the guys I went to school with.
This story is presented as a term paper for Joe's Criminal Justice class. Joe includes footnotes, which a pre-publication reader of the manuscript called "a weird feature, but interesting for fiction."
Anyway, Joaquin's fingernails will be bitten down to the quick waiting for critical reviews. There's no page on the Balona Web site yet, as cover designer Barbara Hodge hasn't finished the cover, but as soon as they have a cover, Joaquin says he'll ask Dr. Pearce to upload the page for An Almost Private Eye.