King of the pulp

I can just imagine that Charles Ardai and Max Phillips have been bursting about this news for months, but now, it’s official:

Stephen King, master of surprise and strange twists, is taking his writing in a new direction: pulp fiction.

The Colorado Kid, a paperback with a lurid, 1940s-style cover featuring a languid brunette (painted by Glen Orbik of Batman and Superman fame), comes out in October from publisher Hard Case Crime.

So how did this come about? Ardai and Phillips approached King to blurb a book…and he wrote one instead:

“Steve is an extraordinary
writer, and as much a fan of classic paperback crime fiction as we are,” said
Charles Ardai, Hard Case Crime’s editor. “We originally contacted him to see if he’d be willing to write a blurb
for our line, and he decided that what he really wanted to do was write a book
for us instead. We’re thrilled that he
wanted to be part of Hard Case Crime and we’re very excited to get to
introduce the world to the baffling mystery of The Colorado Kid.”

“This is an
exciting line of books,” Stephen King commented, “and I’m delighted to be a part
of it. Hard Case Crime presents good, clean, bare-knuckled
storytelling, and even though The Colorado Kid is probably more bleu
than outright noir, I think it has some of those old-fashioned kick-ass
story-telling virtues. It ought to; this is where I started out, and I’m
pleased to be back.”

And I gotta say, that cover looks freaking gorgeous.

Titles to follow after King’s include reissues of Lawrence Block’s THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART, a standalone suspense novel from Donald Hamilton and an early pulp piece by Ed McBain. And don’t forget that Al Guthrie’s KISS HER GOODBYE and Day Keene’s HOME IS THE SAILOR are in stores now.