Crime Fiction Dossier (Old)

Missing in Action: Robert Ward's Red Baker

This is the first in an ongoing series of essays about favorite books that have gone "Missing in Action" (i.e., out of print).

I first discovered Red Baker when I met the book's author, Robert Ward, at the Bouchercon mystery convention in Las Vegas a couple of years back. Bob and I became fast friends and spent many hours together during the conference exploring the possibilities inherent in distilled spirits.

From the beginning, it was obvious that Bob was a guy who knew a lot of about writing and loved books with a passion. I also quickly discovered that, although his work was unknown to me, he had one helluva reputation among other writers. Every time we ran into someone, invariably they would get excited when they found out who Bob was and tell him how much they enjoyed Red Baker.

Clearly Red Baker was something I had to read, so as soon as I got back home I set out to get a copy. The book, unfortunately, was out of print, and thus was not immediately available. Fortunately, I was able to find a copy in a local used bookstore. (You can also find it for sale used on the internet.) I gladly laid out a couple of books and took Red Baker home, eager to see if it could possibly live up to its advanced billing.

Missing in Action: out-of-print books

Frank Wilson (my editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer) recently wrote a blog post about out-of-print books and neglected authors that inspired me. He wrote:

It has been estimated that 99 percent of all the books ever published are out of print. Certainly, enough people want to read out-of-print books to make for a thriving second-hand book business.

A couple of Sundays ago I wrote about a book that's out of print: John O'Hara's Sermons and Soda-Water. I was surprised at how many people sent me emails about O'Hara and what I had to say about him...

The response to my column about O'Hara encourages me to continue writing from time to time about books no longer in print, and about neglected authors. Aficionados of used-book stores are just the sort of people to have favorite neglected writers. So if any of you read this, let me know about them.

Again, I am convinced that the literary blogosphere can bring about a seismic change in critical outlook. We just have to get the conversation going.

I have decided to do something similar of my own. Thus, I will soon launch a new series called "Missing in Action," where I will write about favorite books of mine that have gone out of print. (Feel free to share some of your favorites as well.)

What effect the blogosphere can have at resurrecting these lost titles, I have no idea. I suspect it's probably small. But at least we'll have tried.

Look for the first entry in this series soon: Robert Ward's Red Baker.