It's Here, Now!

Jeff Cohen and E.J. Copperman

On December 2 (that's today!), Berkley Publishing will release INSPECTOR SPECTER, the sixth (!) novel in the Haunted Guesthouse mystery series by E.J. Copperman. And of course we would love it if you went out and procured yourself a copy.

"But wait!" we hear you cry. "Didn't you just have a new book come out about eight weeks ago?" Yes, we did. It's called THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD and is the first book in the Asperger's Mystery series from our very own Terri's Midnight Ink. Certainly we understand your possible confusion over being harangued by an author (or two, we can never tell) about a new book and then again about another new book when the odds are fairly good you haven't gotten a chance to read the old new book yet.

So as a public service we would like to offer the following guide to clarify the issue.

WAYS IN WHICH INSPECTOR SPECTER IS NOT THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD

They have different titles;
Only one author (E.J. Copperman) is listed on INSPECTOR SPECTER, where THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD has two names (E.J. Copperman and Jeff Cohen) on the cover;
They are from different publishers;
They are from different series;
The narrators are of different genders;
The stories are entirely different from each other;
THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD is a trade paperback; INSPECTOR SPECTER is mass market size;
INSPECTOR SPECTER has ghost characters--all the speaking roles in THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD are for living people;
One narrator has Asperger's Syndrome (Samuel Hoenig in THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD);
One narrator has an eleven-year-old daughter (Alison Kerby in INSPECTOR SPECTER);
Where THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD features a missing head (a frozen one stored in a cryonics lab), INSPECTOR SPECTER investigates the shooting death of a character from a previous installment in the Haunted Guesthouse series;
One has a blue cover while the other is closer to purple;
Only one (INSPECTOR SPECTER) has a squirrel on the cover;
THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD features lead characters whose initials might refer to a very famous detective series;
INSPECTOR SPECTER has a character named Lay-Z;
The MISSING HEAD CHALLENGE, which raised $1000 for an autism support group, was an activity related to, well, you know;
INSPECTOR SPECTER will feature a five-city, six-day promotional tour by the author, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

We hope that clears it up for you.

No kidding: INSPECTOR SPECTER is a character-driven installment in the Haunted Guesthouse series that begins with Lt. McElone asking Alison for help, which is strange enough in itself. And then it gets stranger and hopefully more fun with each page. For those who aren't familiar with the series--don't worry. All is explained early on to get you up to speed.

It includes a sinister frozen custard stand, a baby who might (or might not) see ghosts, romance between characters you might not have expected, cooking lessons, shore bungalows, a missing police officer, hot weather, lots of clues that might or might not make sense, and Lt. McElone's husband. Probably.

In any event, we hope you'll enjoy both books and be able to tell them apart, and that we'll see you tomorrow night in East Brunswick, NJ at Barnes & Noble (with Toni LoTempio) and on the road starting next Monday in Ann Arbor, Michigan with our pal Robin Agnew at Aunt Agatha's!