In April 2015, B.K. Stevens debuted the blog series “The First Two Pages,” hosting craft essays by short story writers and novelists analyzing the openings of their own work. The series continued until just after her death in August 2017, and the full archive of those essays can be found at Bonnie’s website. In November 2017, the blog series relocated to my website, and the archive of this second stage of the series can be found here.
Today—August 19—is publication day for Double Crossing Van Dine, a new anthology from Crippen & Landru, in which contributors break the rules of crime fiction as laid down by mystery writer S.S. Van Dine, creator of the detective Philo Vance. The new collection is a follow-up to the Anthony Award-nominated anthology School of Hard Knox, which gave a similar treatment to Monsignor Ronald Knox’s Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction—and I’m pleased to have helped organize both collections alongside Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Crippen & Landru publisher Jeffrey Marks.
Double Crossing Van Dine features stories by a terrific group of writers. In addition to stories by each editor (including my own, “Dalliances”), we’re welcoming short fiction by J.C. Bernthal, John Floyd, Michael Thomas Ford, Barb Goffman, Elly Griffiths, Cheryl Head, Vaseem Khan, Edith Maxwell, Tom Mead, Richie Narvaez, Erica Ruth Neubauer, Alan Orloff, Gigi Pandian, Leigh Perry, Delia Pitts, Marcia Talley, and Elaine Viets.
Delia Pitts joins us today to talk about the opening of her story, “Better Together”—which breaks Rule #9 of Van Dine’s list: “There must be but one detective…” You can find the full list of rules here.
Delia may be best known as a novelist—author of the Ross Agency Mysteries, set in Harlem, and most recently of the noir mystery Death of an Ex, book two of the Vandy Myrick mystery series. But she’s also a distinguished short story writer, including having one of her stories, “The Killer,” selected for Best American Mystery and Suspense 2021. You can find out more about Delia and her work at her website, deliapitts.com.
With the new book, Crippen & Landru is running a special between now and Bouchercon—clipping this information from the latest newsletter:
While I didn’t list them, we have a number of other authors included in this book, Double Crossing Van Dine, who have collections with Crippen & Landru. We’re so lucky to have them. Since we’re celebrating our authors, the collections by these authors will be available at half-price (50% off) if you purchase Double Crossing Van Dine. If you purchase the clothbound edition, you may choose to buy the clothbound of the collection(s), or the paperback(s). If you purchase the paperback edition, you may choose to buy the paperback(s) of the collections. In either case, you may purchase up to five books at the discounted price.
These authors are:
- Edith Maxwell
- Tom Mead
- Marcia Talley
- Leigh Perry (whose collection came out under Toni. L.P. Kelner)
- Art Taylor
- Elaine Viets
- and Gigi Pandian (who wrote the introduction for Funeral in the Fog by Edward Hoch.)
- School of Hard Knox
Enjoy Delia’s essay here and enjoy the special deal from the publisher—and stay tuned for another contributor to Double Crossing Van Dine in this same space next week!
Please use the arrows and controls at the bottom of the embedded PDF to navigate through the essay. You can also download the essay to read off-line.
Delia-Pitts
