It’s been a good week for our humble tome THE BIG O, folks. Not only did it ascend at one point to the nosebleed-worthy heights of 33,128 (whoo-hoo!) on the Amazon.com rankings, but the rumours of foreign translations, in the wake of the Frankfurt bun-fight, grow stronger by the day. For lo! Apparently there’s an Italian publisher showing ‘strong interest’ in foisting THE BIG O on an unsuspecting Italian public, which would be pretty cool given that I have very fond memories of finishing the second-to-last draft of said tome on the Aeolian island of Lipari, this during the holiday that I proposed to my wife. Nice. Just as intriguing is the news that there’s ‘very strong interest’ from a German publisher, even though I’ve never finished any drafts of anything in Germany, nor managed even so much as a smooch with a fraulein. Still, crime fiction seems to be coming strong in Germany in the last few years in particular – at least, we presume it’s still coming strong, even though we haven’t heard from our old friend Bernd Kochanowski in ages. Bernd? If you’re out there, buddy, just send a carrier pigeon …
Finally, it’s been confirmed that a Hungarian publisher will inflict THE BIG O on its nation’s denizens next year, which news is the kind to tickle my always flabber-prone gast. Yes, yes, I appreciate that such developments represent small potatoes to the more established scribes among you, but given that THE BIG O was originally a co-published book put together on a budget of three bent paper-clips and a snapped elastic band, the idea that it’ll see the light in Hungarian is simultaneously hilarious and poignant. Like, Hungary? You’re kidding, right? You’re not? Oh …
To celebrate, I’m going to run the new and improved ‘book trailer’ devised by Shay Bagnall, the entirely immodest new-and-improved elements being some blurbs that were kindly delivered by John Connolly, Reed Farrel Coleman and Booklist - plus a cute little ‘smoking gun’ add-on the Baggsman threw in for giggles. Hell, smoke ’em if you got ’em, right? Roll it there, Collette …
