Introducing Max Austin

Official publication date is still months away, but DUKE CITY SPLIT is already available for pre-order at Amazon and elsewhere. At bargain prices, too.

DUKE CITY SPLIT is my first book with Alibi, the new mystery imprint at Random House, and it's the first I'm publishing under my new pen name, Max Austin. Random House revealed the April 8 publication date and the cover art in an announcement the other day.

I love the cover art, and I'm really proud of DUKE CITY SPLIT, which is the first in a trilogy of overlapping crime stories set in Albuquerque.

So why the pen name? My agent's idea. He thinks these new stories are so different from what I've done in the past that they signal the start of something new. I feel that way, too, so I came up with "Max Austin" by taking names from my two grown sons.

So far, I'm very pleased with the new arrangement with Alibi, and I hope it will help me (or, rather, Max Austin) reach a wider audience. I'll happily write more in the series if sales warrant.

Hey, Max Austin, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

And the winners are. . .

A big thanks to everyone who entered my drawing for free paperback copies of THE BIG WINK.

The five lucky winners are Lynn Demsky, Cheryl Stoeser, E.H. Hackney, Margit Curtright and Rick Ollerman. Their copies of THE BIG WINK will go out in Monday's mail.

As for the rest of you, check out THE BIG WINK on Amazon here. They're running a sale on that book and several others I've written. Thanks!

Big book giveaway

If you've ever wondered how a marijuana-based economy might work, you should check out my crime novel THE BIG WINK, which is set in Redding, California, during the peak of the region's "Green Rush."

Sound interesting? You're in luck because I'm giving away FIVE trade paperbacks of THE BIG WINK at noon Sunday, 10/6. To enter, just send an e-mail to abqbrewer@gmail.com with "THE BIG WINK" in the subject line. Winners will be chosen by random drawing and I'll contact them for mailing addresses. Postage is on me.

THE BIG WINK is a personal favorite from among my 25-plus books, and it comes with some of the best blurbs ever, including praise from award-winning authors Bill Fitzhugh, Charlie Price and Reed Farrel Coleman. Reed called me "the evil offspring of Don Winslow and Elmore Leonard." High praise, indeed.

I got a real kick out of writing THE BIG WINK and, as I always joke at personal appearances, the research was a blast, man.

In the opening scene of this action-packed novel, a banker named Kwanzaa DuPont is shot during a holdup at a medical marijuana dispensary. The robbers, led by Ray Bunch, have been knocking over dispensaries for weeks, but the shooting draws the full attention of law enforcement and the news media. The robbers are forced to scatter, and their wanderings take them throughout Northern California's hidden cannabis industry.

THE BIG WINK is populated with a bunch of interesting characters.
I think you'll enjoy getting to know them. For more info about the book, check out the Amazon page here.

Enter the drawing today!