Robert Crais switches publishers?

It all started after browsing through Amazon UK, which is notorious for putting up listings almost 2 years in advance (for example, see this for Steve Hamilton’s forthcoming standalone — due out in 2007) and finding a brief writeup of Crais’s next novel, the standalone TWO-MINUTE RULE:

Two minutes can be a lifetime. But break the two-minute rule and it’s a lifetime in jail. Ask anyone on the wrong side of the law about the two-minute rule and they’ll tell you that’s as long as you can hope for at a robbery before the cops show up. But not everyone plays by the rules. When an aging ex-con finally gets out of jail, freedom doesn’t taste too sweet. His son is gunned down in a drive-by shooting. It seems like a random crime, but when the victim is a cop – especially a cop with a con for a father – the motives are never simple. When the hit is exposed as a revenge killing, and the question of police corruption is raised, it becomes a father’s last duty to clear his son’s name and catch the killer. Gathering all the elements that have made Robert Crais one of the very best crime writers today, "Two Minute Rule" will grip and intrigue his legions of fans, and provide the perfect opportunity for new readers to discover the author who sets the standard when it comes to twisting plots and powerful characters.

In the UK, the book will be out from his longtime publisher there, Orion — but in the US, much to my surprise, the publisher listed is Simon & Schuster.

And in checking S&S’s website, they have a listing as well, but so far, only for the ebook version.

Now ain’t that interesting. I wonder who the acquiring editor is?