Publication Date for Mercedes Lambert's Dogtown/Soultown Omnibus Nears -- First time complete Dogtown Trilogy will be in print

    /24-7PressRelease/ - CLAREMONT, CA, March 18, 2008 - On March 31, 2008, Stark House Press will release the first two Whitney Logan mysteries—Dogtown and Soultown—in a single edition with an introduction by acclaimed crime/noir author Ken Bruen and an afterword by Mercedes Lambert's longtime friend and literary executor Lucas Crown.

Following on the heels of the August 2007 publication of Ghosttown, this spring's release will be the first time that the complete Dogtown trilogy will be in print.

The Dogtown trilogy was completed in the 1990s by Douglas Anne Munson, who wrote the Whitney Logan mysteries under the pen name Mercedes Lambert, while working as an attorney in the Los Angeles criminal court system. "I never knew Douglas Anne Munson but I knew her books," Michael Connelly wrote in his appreciation of Mercedes Lambert. "I read them all and loved them all. ...she gave us characters we hadn't seen before and took us to places we had never known."

Dogtown was originally released in 1992 by Viking Press; Soultown followed in 1996. Both books received wide critical praise. Carolyn See said in the Los Angeles Times: "Who says an entertaining, charming, unpretentious detective story can't be...an authentic agent of social change? ... Dogtown is an excellent, fresh, indigenous thriller."

Ken Bruen, in his introduction to the new Stark House edition, calls Dogtown and Soultown "...just pure brilliant noir classics..." and adds, "She breaks my heart with her beautiful writing."

Ghosttown, the final book in the trilogy, was not published during Mercedes Lambert's lifetime. Completed in 1996, the book went unpublished for ten years. Derailed by its rejection, and personal difficulties, the author fled Los Angeles, staying in spare rooms, crash pads, and transient hotels, all the while trying to revise Ghosttown.

After the author's death in 2003 in Connecticut, at the age of 55, Ghosttown was found in a box among her belongings in a Los Angeles garage. Her longtime friend, Lucas Crown, spent nearly four years seeking a publisher for the book, and finding a reprint publisher for Dogtown and Soultown.

Ghosttown was published Five Star Mystery in fall 2007 to substantial praise and attention. Bestselling author Michael Connelly contributed an introduction to the book. Author Jonathan Kellerman called Ghosttown "...a noir masterpiece. One of the most evocative LA crime novels ever written."

When Soultown/Dogtown is released in March by Stark House, the complete Dogtown trilogy will be in print for the first time, and the legacy of Mercedes Lambert will be complete.

For more information on these books and their author, please visit www.mercedeslambert.com

Contact:

Lucas Crown
Literary Executor
909 621-3345
[email protected]
www.mercedeslambert.com

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