Paul Harrison at Dru's Book Musings!

Paul Harrison (the ghost detective from the Haunted Guesthouse mystery series) is the guest relating "A Day in the Life" (in this case, not so much life) at Dru's Book Musings today! Check it out!

WRITTEN OFF: A Best Mystery of 2016!

Library Journal has published its list of the Top 5 Mystery Novels of 2016, and yes, WRITTEN OFF, the first Mysterious Detective Mystery, is on the list! We're doing some cartwheels here at Copperman Central! If you want to see (not the cartwheels; that would be embarrassing), click here!

The second Mysterious Detective novel, EDITED OUT, will be published by Crooked Lane Books next May. Here's the cover!

Contest Winners!

The winners of last week's contests:

Copies of SPOUSE IN THE WIND, A Haunted Guesthouse Mystery (coming Dec. 6):

KarenM

Emily Goehner

Adrienne Asher

Free codes for the Audible Audiobook of THE QUESTION OF THE FELONIOUS FRIEND:

PJ Meyers

Amanda Naughton

AM Caldwell

Copies of THE QUESTION OF THE FELONIOUS FRIEND:

Keith Johnson

Kathy Whitmore

Phillis Carbone

Please get in touch by emailing EJCopperman AT gmail DOT com with your mailing address for paper books and email address for audiobook codes. Thanks to everyone who entered!

CONTESTS! (3!)

Let's celebrate! It's time to move some inventory, by which I mean I'm hip-deep in books and need to get some out of my house and into yours. So let's have a contest. No. Let's have THREE contests! And let's make them as completely subjective and random as possible!

Contest the First: Guesthouse fans--search the Internet for mentions of E.J. Copperman or the Haunted Guesthouse series (no fair finding REAL haunted guesthouses!). Find your favorite review of a Guesthouse book, pick out a quote and enter it in Comments below. My three favorites (I told you this would be subjective) will get a copy of SPOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. 

Contest the Second: For fans of the Samuel Hoenig Asperger's mystery series, you know of Samuel's special interest in a certain British pop band (if you just thought One Direction, you are disqualified). Name your favorite Beatles song below. If yours is one of the Comments I choose incredibly arbitrarily, you'll win a free CODE. I know, you're excited. Wait. That code will get you a FREE DOWNLOAD of the brand-new audiobook version of THE QUESTION OF THE FELONIOUS FRIEND performed by Mark Boyett, who was interviewed here not long ago! You plug in the code, you get the book for free, and I will give out THREE codes for that audiobook from Audible.

Contest the Third: You like Samuel Hoenig, but you hate having someone read a book to you brilliantly? No problem! I'll give out THREE FREE copies of THE QUESTION OF THE FELONIOUS FRIEND on actual pages. To win this one, search the Internet for people rumored to have had Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism in history (you'll be amazed how many there are, and no, we have no idea if any of this is accurate). Choose your favorite and mention him/her in a Comment below. Then get friends to vote for your favorite also in the Comments below (and mention your name). Top three vote getters win! (I could make an election comment here, but I'm exercising restraint.)

Yes, you MAY enter more than one contest, but you may only enter each one time (no multiple answers). And even then, since I'm being completely arbitrary about choosing winners, you may NOT win more than one of the prizes, to be fair to all.

Winners will be announced in this space next Monday, the 28th! Entries must be in by, let's say noon Black Friday, the 25th!

Complicated enough? Get to work!

Bad News/Good News on the Haunted Guesthouse Series!

Okay, I've been quite long enough (for me). Here's what's been going on:

Berkley Prime Crime has opted not to continue publishing Haunted Guesthouse novels after the 8th, SPOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, is made available on Dec. 6. The move wasn't entirely unexpected given the state of the publishing business, particularly for mass market cozy mysteries, but it wasn't the news we wanted to hear.

But don't worry: The Guesthouse will go on! Crooked Lane Books (publishers of the Mysterious Detective Mystery series that began with the extremely well-reviewed WRITTEN OFF in June) has decided to publish at least two more Haunted Guesthouse books, so I'm writing the ninth installment in the series right now (in fact, I should be doing that instead of posting this). So there will be at the very least two more chances to visit with Alison, Melissa, Paul, Maxie and all the other characters at the guesthouse on the Jersey Shore.

You'll want to check in with SPOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL when it's released, because changes are in the air. Alison's starting to wonder if she's done all she can with the house, and if she can sustain her business there. Paul wants to find a way to move on to the next plane of existence and thinks he's found one. Melissa definitely doesn't have a crush on a boy in her class. And Josh is acting strange.

Just remember: The Guesthouse goes on, and it's thanks to you that a publisher was interested, so thanks to all the readers and fans! You're the ones that make it happen!

New Web Site!

Well, redesigned, anyway. Check out the new version of the E.J. Copperman web site here and comment below so we know what you think!

The WRITTEN OFF Blog Tour!

Here I come (walkin' down the street... no)--the blog tour for WRITTEN OFF, the first Mysterious Detective Mystery from Crooked Lane Books, will see your old pal E.J. spouting off about all sorts of stuff (mostly WRITTEN OFF, to be fair) in the following places on the following dates:

Cats, Books and More Cats: Week of June 12 Speculating on what I'd do if WRITTEN OFF happened to me)

Dru's Book Musings: June 14 (Publication Day!) A Day in the Life of Rachel Goldman

Jungle Red Writers: June 14 (Still Publication Day!) About my dad, not WRITTEN OFF

Kings River Life: June 18 How do you publicize a nutty book?

Stuff & Nonsense: June 22  On characters doing what they want

I hope you'll take a look!

Get an ARC of WRITTEN OFF--and help preserve a great bookstore!

I'll say it all here--please bid on one of the WRITTEN OFF ARCs and help repair the flood damage to the wonderful Murder by the Book in Houston! Let's see some Copperman fans help the mystery community in a direct and hopefully fun way!

http://heydeadguy.typepad.com/heydeadguy/2016/05/help-a-bookstore-get-a-book.html

Program in Ewing, NJ This Sunday!

I'll be talking about Making (Fictional) Murder Funny this Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Ewing Branch Library in Ewing, NJ. So if you're in the area, please register and come join us! I'll be signing books after the talk and I'd love to see you!

As it turns out, not so much. A troublesome forecast has led to this event being cancelled, so please, don't come out to the library looking for me. Sorry for the confusion, and I hope to get out to Ewing soon--we'll keep you posted!

Upcoming Cover Cornupcopia

Covers you might not have seen yet, all coming this year...

Comments?

"Guesthouse" on TV? Maybe It's Up to YOU!

There's been something of a revival on television of the cozy mystery, chiefly from the Hallmark Channel, which has been airing Flower Shop mysteries and reportedly has more in the works.

So do you want to see the Haunted Guesthouse series adapted for television? Well, there's nothing networks like better than viewers (except maybe advertisers, and those come from having viewers), so if you'd like to see it happen...

Just go here and see what to do!

Read it! Hear it!

GHOST IN THE WIND, the seventh Haunted Guesthouse mystery, is now available as an audiobook from Audible! The wonderful Amanda Ronconi is back narrating and giving life to all the characters as she has done for every Guesthouse novel. You can find it (and get a sample) here!

New cover reveal: The Question of the Felonious Friend!

Coming this September: