THE HECTOR LASSITER SERIES: A QUICK PRIMER

Every year about this time, as people start thinking about books for gift-giving, I start getting emails asking for tips on where new readers to the Hector Lassiter novels should jump in, what order the books should ideally be read in, and so on.

The short answer is that the cycle of 10 novels and single short story collection (all but the last novel and the short story anthology have been released) were designed to tell a larger story but can, really, be read in any order you prefer.

Only the last novel, still to come, should be read, well, last.

Also, on their first pass through publication, editors and publishers cherry-picked the series, publishing the first four out of my own intended, loose order, further confusing matters.

A couple of years ago, Betimes Books got rights to the entire Lassiter saga, and began publishing the old and new novels in something as close to chronological form as is feasible. (Tough to do perfectly, given some of the novels sometimes jump decades in unfolding their stories.)

In that spirit, and in sincere gratitude for your holiday gift-giving support, a very short description of the Lassiter novels in new, intended publication sequence follows:

(One caution and an effort to mitigate riled Amazon reviewers who might get something they don't expect: The series is written for adults who have urges and weaknesses of their own. Some bad language occurs...people couple. These are literary thrillers, or crime novels, if you like, but decidedly not cozies or even mysteries, per se. Historical figures come and go throughout. Most of the novels turn on real crimes and events. Character drives plot. End of caution.)

ONE TRUE SENTENCE: This is Hector at ground zero; a novel about how the man became the author/screenwriter we follow through the other books. Set in Paris, in 1924, the novel is a love-letter to the City of Lights and attempt to transform Ernest Hemingway's A MOVEABLE FEAST into a crime novel. Hemingway appears throughout, along with other expatriate icons of the era.

FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND: A love story, and the only direct sequel in the series and so, practically speaking, the novel to read after OTS. This one takes Hector to Key West, coming right off the end of ONE TRUE SENTENCE. Along with that novel, FOREVER effectively completes Hector's apprenticeship, closing out his origin story, so to speak. This is the one novel in the series that contains no historical figures, though it is based on two historic crimes.

TOROS & TORSOS: If you're going to sample one novel and decide on others, I'd point you to this one. It's the Lassiter novel that looms largest and globe-trots with the most audacity. This one is based on a series of true-life, bizarre, art-inspired crimes, including the Black Dahlia murder. Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles are supporting players. If I truly have a favorite among my novels, this is probably it.

THE GREAT PRETENDER: Orson Welles returns, and we follow him through the bizarre triumph of "The War of the Worlds" panic broadcast and on into the filming of the noir classic, THE THIRD MAN. It's a nice companion piece for TOROS, and sets the groundwork for Orson's final appearance in HEAD GAMES.

ROLL THE CREDITS: Along with TOROS, one of the big Lassiter novels. This one's set during World War II, largely in occupied Paris, but eventually moving on to post-war Hollywood, weaving in and around the events of the previous two novels but it also stands very much alone and explores the dark origins of film noir.

THE RUNNING KIND: With this entry, we enter the 1950s. Television is ascendant, the mob under fire from politicians and J. Edgar Hoover is trying to explain how he somehow missed the existence of the Mafia. A road novel, a love story... A cross-country chase through the snowy midwest between Thanksgiving and the New Year, and a portrait of a time when authors lived in fear TV would murder the publishing industry. (Always something...)

HEAD GAMES: In this reading sequence, the seventh novel, but originally the first and where it all started with the Lassiter series. Set in the late 1950s, Hector Lassiter inherits the lost skull of Pancho Villa, complete with treasure map, and things go crazy from there. The novel is coming in graphic novel format sometime in 2017.

PRINT THE LEGEND: The secret history of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's war on writers, and, particularly, on Ernest Hemingway. Along with ONE TRUE SENTENCE and TOROS & TORSOS, this one completes a kind of Papa-trilogy within the larger series.

DEATH IN THE FACE: Newly released and the penultimate novel in the series, this one features James Bond creator Ian Fleming and gives the secret history behind several Bond novels and films, including FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. A good choice not just for Lassiter readers, but for Ian Fleming and James Bond fans, as well.

With that, a wish for a safe and happy holiday season for you and yours!

ONE TRUE SENTENCE: Paperback/eBook

FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND: Paperback/eBook

TOROS & TORSOS: Paperback/eBook

THE GREAT PRETENDER: Paperback/eBook

ROLL THE CREDITS: Paperback/eBook

THE RUNNING KIND: Paperback/eBook

HEAD GAMES: Paperback/eBook

PRINT THE LEGEND: Paperback/eBook/audio

&

DEATH IN THE FACE

NOW AVAILABLE here

COVER ME #3: FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND & THE GREAT PRETENDER

(Note: Covers can make or break a book. The fact is, we do judge books by their covers. This is the third in a series of posts examining the strategies, concepts and creative process behind the repackaging of the Hector Lassiter series into bestselling, uniform editions for Betimes Books).

The final version of the Betimes Books'
edition of FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND

This edition is all "pretend" in terms of exploring more about how Betimes Books and I went about our strategic relaunch of the Hector Lassiter series, for the first time presenting the entire series in a mix of old and new titles, uniformly branded and sequenced in chronological order.

Having established the look of the new series with our reissues of ONE TRUE SENTENCE and TOROS & TORSOS, we were next faced with giving first-time packaging to two, never-before-seen Hector Lassiter novels.

The first, the only direct sequel in the Hector Lassiter canon, was FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND. Set in 1925 Key West, the novel comes literally off the end of its predecessor, the 1924, Paris-set ONE TRUE SENTENCE.

FOREVER reunites Hector with his OTS true love, Brinke Devlin. The novel finds Brinke, the muse, completing her essential "creation" of the Hector Lassiter we come to know across the series. Hector is launching himself as a novelist and Brinke is reinventing her writing career with a new, male byline down there on Bone Key.

Louise Brooks, down South.

For this novel's cover, we knew we had to depict the Louise Brooks-inspired Brinke (Miss Devlin's bio reflects many aspects of Miss Brook's turbulent life, including a shocking act of violence suffered as a child).

We settled on a very simple and stark arrangement of images telegraphing Hector, Brinke at her writing table and Key West itself, as suggested by some prominent, evocative palm fronds in the background.

First pass on FOREVER, continuing
the sepia treatment used for
ONE TRUE SENTENCE.

J.T. Lindroos also introduced a burst of color after SENTENCE'S monochrome, sepia treatment, a visual addition that has continued on through most of the other new Lassiter covers.

Lassiter #4, THE GREAT PRETENDER, is a natural follow up to TOROS & TORSOS, which featured a stretch of the novel centering on Orson Welles during the nightmarish production of his first film noir, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

In PRETENDER, Hector and Orson are partnered across the expanse of the entire novel, and a large portion of the roller coaster arc of their decades-long association is revealed.

The Prater Wheel, Vienna.

The basic images of Hector and Orson (a very rare take of Orson standing in a light falling snow in a graveyard in Vienna) were settled upon fairly early. The question became what to drop in as a third element suggesting the supernatural theme of this particular novel—the only significant instance in which the Lassiter series flirts with a near genre-crossing into the realm of the occult.

Because the novel visits the Vienna filming site of the Graham Greene-penned THE THIRD MAN, we toyed with incorporating some image of the Prater Wheel which features so famously in THE THIRD MAN'S iconic confrontation between Joseph Cotten and Welles' Harry Lime.

The fear was that not enough readers would identify the amusement attraction as anything more than a simple Ferris Wheel (also, just such a wheel and a spread of tarot cards already adorns the cover of my Chris Lyon novel, CARNIVAL NOIR).


We next flirted with incorporating an image to suggest Hector's female foil in the novel, a mysterious voodoo priestess with her own shadowy agenda.

One iteration actually didn't incorporate Hector at all, which seemed a serious misstep, to me.

To tie the series together, visually, it seemed essential to keep Mr. Lassiter, front and center, so to speak.

We then tried to pull three faces into the bigger picture.

Again, the concept just didn't seem quite right—it didn't give any real flavor of the book waiting beneath the cover. In the end, we hit on the final design seen below, with the iconic image of Baron Samedi—the loa of the dead in the Haitian Vodou pantheon—lurking over Hector and Orson's shoulders.

NEXT UP: ROLL THE CREDITS

——————

ONE TRUE SENTENCE: Paperback/eBook

FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND: Paperback/eBook

TOROS & TORSOS: Paperback/eBook

THE GREAT PRETENDER: Paperback/eBook

ROLL THE CREDITS: Paperback/eBook

THE HECTOR LASSITER SERIES RETURNS

THE NEW COVER FOR THE FIRST
TRADE PAPERBACK EDITION
OF
ONE TRUE SENTENCE

ONE TRUE SENTENCE: Paperback/eBook

FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND: Paperback/eBook

TOROS & TORSOS: Paperback/eBook

February, 2011: One True Sentence is released, the fourth of the Hector Lassiter novels.

At its climax, crime novelist Hector Lassiter wanders into a woman’s Paris apartment, bleeding and pushed past all points of exhaustion. The story ends on a dark and ambiguous note:

“In the blackness, Hector felt himself falling.”

Then, a kind of real blackness swallowed up Hector and his ongoing series.

Nearly all of the planned Lassiter novels were finished long before OTS was published. But logistics, competing publisher nibbles and various other factors resulted in a kind of accidental purgatory for the Lassiter series.

Hector has lingered in that blackness far too long.

It’s a fact made more frustrating because One True Sentence and its intended follow up are the only two chronologically and plot-linked books in the series. There was every intention of having Hector Lassiter and fellow novelist Brinke Devlin reconnect on Valentine’s Day 1925 (or, for his readers, February 14, 2012), as was set up in the closing pages of OTS.

While the series has been on forced hiatus, I’ve steadily recovered publishing rights and now have complete control of all Lassiter novels, past and future, for the first time since 2006.

The plan now is to publish the series in hyper-accelerated fashion between this and next summer.

The entire Hector Lassiter series and a collection of Lassiter short stories will be made available in eBook and uniform trade paperback editions over a course of mere months.

Each novel will feature an introduction and reader discussion questions, along with new covers and overall packaging.

I see these as the definitive Lassiter editions and they will in fact represent the first paperback editions available in English of Print the Legend and One True Sentence.

There’s something else very different about this edition of releases.

Readers of the Lassiter series know time is used in a most unusual way in the novels. The books are designed to present a larger story and arc for Hector when the series is viewed as a whole.

However, the novels can also be read in any order. Upon original publication, the first four novels jumped back and forth through time, with Hector variously presented as an older and younger man.

The new releases of the Hector Lassiter series will try for something different. We’re going to present the books in roughly chronological order—at least in terms of where the main story starts as the novel opens. In other words, the repackaged series now begins with One True Sentence, the fourth novel in original publication sequence, but the first novel chronologically.

Set in 1924 Paris and featuring Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and a host of other historical notables from the period, that novel is now followed by its intended sequel, Forever’s Just Pretend, enjoying its first-ever publication.

FJP completes another story, revealing how Hector became the guy we come to know across the rest of the series: “The man who lives what he writes and writes what he lives.”

Before autumn’s end, you will also be given a repackaged, expanded version of Toros & Torsos (1935), quickly followed by two new Lassiter novels, The Great Pretender (1938) and Roll the Credits (1940).

The rest of the repackaged series briskly unfolds in similar fashion, a mix of old and new titles.

As I’ve said, the Lassiter novels were written back-to-back and the series mostly shaped and in place before the second novel was officially published. It’s very unusual in that sense—a series of discrete novels that are tightly linked and when taken together stand as a single, far larger story.

I reserve the right to tell smaller, “standalone” Lassiter stories here and there perhaps, but the heart and soul of Hector’s saga is in the ten books coming your way over the next few months.

Welcome back to the world of Hector Lassiter.

STILL TO COME: New cover reveals, novel descriptions and book trailers.