A special offer for fans & friends of Elaine Viets

Many of you know Elaine Viets through her Dead End Job series beginning with Shop Till You Drop featuring Helen Hawthorne who takes a series of off-the-books jobs. Others have met Elaine at one of her many appearances at MLB or elsewhere. You may not be aware that on April 10 Elaine suffered a serious and quite unexpected cerebral stroke. While she's recovering well she's presently in a rehab facility and won't be coming home for several weeks after which she'll still face a long recovery.

While our primary concern is Elaine's health and well-being, her professional life as a writer goes on and her new book, Murder with Reservations, is due for release on May 1. Since Elaine won't be available for any author appearances or promotion for the new book we'd like to offer you a way to help launch the book and do some good for a library at the same time.

If you buy a copy of Elaine's new book, Murder with Reservations, and have it sent to a library--we'll take care of the shipping.

You can take advantage of this offer any time between now and the end of May. All the details are on the Elaine Viets Offer page.

Elaine was scheduled to appear at the Festival of Mystery on May 7 and, even though she won't be there, we'll have a table of her books and we hope that you'll support her by buying the new book for yourself.

This week's special

A complete change of pace for This Week's Special, a light and enjoyable tale of a California PI who may be a little hefty but is still plenty sexy.

Take a look at this week's special where you can save 20% and get a good read all at one time.

Best Books for Babies

Beginning with Books, a nationally recognized authority on early childhood literacy, has announced their Best Books for Babies 2007 identifying ten oustanding, published in 2006, for the earliest readers.

At MLB we've been supporting Beginning with Books for many years with our Angel Tree which supplies hundreds of books for their programs each year through the generosity of our customers.

We're carrying all the Best Books for Babies and you'll find them on the website. If you're looking for a baby gift or something for your kids or grandkids you'll find that these choices will fit the bill.

This Just In

Brad Meltzer, David Baldacci and David Rosenfelt are among the authors with newly arrived books.

You'll find the complete list of what's new in our New Arrivals pages.

On the British Books front, I want to mention new editions of two books by Edmund Crispin: The Moving Toyshop and Love Lies Bleeding. Crispin was a master of the Golden Age mystery with an amateur sleuth, Gervase Fen, who was an Oxford don as was Crispin himself. These books are marvelously clever, quite funny and a thorough delight. As an added bonus, the covers are quite nifty.

The complete list of new British arrivals will be found on the What's New in British Mystery page.

April-May News

The April-May edition of the MLB News is in the mail but you can download your own copy (in PDF format). Also availale for download, The Festival of Mystery Insert with full details on the Festival.

Festival of Mystery

The 12th Annual MLB Festival of Mystery is coming up on Monday, May 7. You'll find complete details on our Festival of Mystery page with author bio's and access to bibliographies of their books. We've got over 50 authors coming and we expect a record crowd.

Tickets for the Festival may be purchased on-line for $7 or at the door for $8.

Upcoming Events

May 7 - Festival of Mystery
May 17 - Debbie Macomber
May 18 - Heather Terrell
May 20 - Lindsey Davis

Happy reading and start thinking about spring,
Richard, Mary Alice and the MLB Staff