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Our increasingly weekly email

Dear %%First Name%%,

Our first Weekly Special of the new year

Start off the new year right with our Weekly Special featuring an absorbing thriller about adoptive parents who face an unimaginable nightmare. Save 20% on This Week's Special.

Looking for a good book?

If you're looking for something new to read why not take a look at our Staff Picks for January and see what we're reading. You'll find several choices, including a non-mystery, that might interest you.

Looking for a good book, part 2

If none of our Staff Picks were interesting to you, perhaps you'd like to see what our customers were reading last month. Our December Best Sellers provides a rich assortment of titles that reflect some holiday buying, author events, book clubs and just plain popular authors.

Looking for a good book, part 3

If the December Best Sellers weren't enough, perhaps you'd like to see the 2008 Best Sellers reflecting the books that topped our charts for the entire year.

New Arrivals

Still receiving New Arrivals over the past week with new titles by Janet Evanovich, Stuart Kaminsky, Joanne Harris, Lawrence block and many others.

Some interesting re-issues also came in this week. The first two of Joe R. Lansdale's series with Hap and Leonard just arrived: Savage Season and Mucho Mojo. This is a very funny series of crime novels which stars a mismatched pair of Texas good ol' boys who are constantly in some sort of trouble--usually of their own making.

Also available is one of the most delightful academic mysteries I know of: Murder in the Museum of Man by Alfred Alcorn. A wonderful send-up of academic politics and pretensions.

See New Arrivals for the complete list.

About that Go Green thing

We've been more than pleased with the response to our Go Green initiative aimed at holding down our costs for the MLB News while helping the environment. Hundreds of folks have signed up and we appreciate it

We do have just a little bit of concern, however, about our move from print to online. When we announced availability of the MLB News for Dec-Jan on the website, we didn't exactly get a flood of orders as is usual for the arrival of our printed News. In fact, we didn't even get a trickle of orders. Last week, when the printed News was delivered, we experienced the usual jump in phone and mail orders.

We'd hate to think we've made a terrible mistake in trying to move the MLB News online. If you have any thoughts on this, we'd love to hear them. If you want to send us an order, too, we could really use that as well.

A special offer from Mystery Scene Magazine

Mystery Scene magazine has a special offer for a free, sample copy. Naturally, since we write a column for them we think they're the best mystery magazine around but you can judge for yourself by getting a sample.

What's on the website now

Here's what you can find at www.mysterylovers.com:

Hallie Ephron Coffee & Crime

Start off the new year with our Coffee & Crime series beginning Saturday, January 10 with Hallie Ephron and her new novel of suspense Never Tell a Lie. With a background as a mystery novelist, book reviewer and author of how-to books for authors, Hallie's appearances at MLB have been both popular and entertaining. Don't miss our first Coffee & Crime of the year.

The evening before Hallie will present a workshop on Writing Killer Crime Fiction sponsored by the local chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Caroline Todd Coffee & Crime

The next Saturday, January 17, we'll welcome back Caroline Todd who is half of the mother and son writing team known as Charles Todd. She'll be here with the latest novel featuring Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge, A Matter of Justice.

T.C. Boyle - February 13

We have a very special evening coming up in February with author T.C. Boyle and we wanted to give our online subscribers a head start on the tickets.

Friday, February 13 T.C. Boyle will give a talk and signing of his new book, The Women, at the Oakmont Carnegie Library at 7 pm. Boyle, the author of ten novels including Road to Wellville and The Inner Circle, is a noted speaker and his subject will be Frank Lloyd Wright. The Women tells the story of Wright's tempestuous life through the perspective of the four women in his life: his three wives and his mistress.

Tickets for T.C. Boyle's talk and signing are $31 and include a copy of the book, The Women. Companion tickets, which do not include the book, are $9 and are only available when purchasing regular tickets.

Upcoming Events

Jan. 10- Hallie Ephron Coffee & Crime
Jan. 17 - Charles (Caroline) Todd Coffee & Crime
Feb. 13 - T.C. Boyle

Best wishes for the new year .
Richard, Mary Alice and the MLB Staff

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