The Authorized Version

One of my favorite gems of wisdom I’ve attempted to pass on to our children is that life gives you second chances. And sometimes even third and fourth chances.

That’s certainly true in the case of books in this age of electronic publishing. And my Lord Danvers Victorian true-crime series is a case in point. I began the series in 1993— wow, that’s 20 years ago!— with A Most Inconvenient Death, telling the story of the shattering events of the Stanfield Hall murders through the eyes of an eccentric nobleman grieving the death of his fiancé.

Of course, this was published in print. That’s all there was 20 years ago. Remember the days?

In Grave Matters I told the story of body-snatchers Burke and Hare when Danvers and his new love Lady Antonia went to Edinburgh on their honeymoon— in a hot air balloon, no less.

To Dust You Shall Return followed with problems in their marriage and the Catherine Bacon murder leading to a chase scene over the rooftop of Canterbury Cathedral.

And that, it seemed, was that. Until life gave me— and Lord Danvers— a second chance with those wonderful, newfangled ebooks when Greenbrier Books returned the series to life with glorious new covers. The series was phenomenally successful, making the top 100 on lots of lists for months. At one time Danvers sat, with an amused grin on his face, between P. D. James and Harlan Coben.

And then in A Tincture of Murder an all-new adventure took Charles and Antonia to Victorian York where William Dove, the notorious "Leeds Poisoner" is on trial for murdering his wife. Dove can’t be the one poisoning the fallen women at the Magdalen Asylum run by Danvers’ young priest brother. So who is? Is another madman stalking the streets of York? And what is causing the foul stench at the orphans’ school?

All that’s a fine example for my "second chances" poster. But now there’s more. A third chance? Greenbrier is bringing the series out in print. Yes, the old-fashioned, hold-in-your-hand, put-on-a shelf, made-of-paper kind of book that many of us are finding we really do prefer, in spite of the amazing convenience of electronic readers. And Danvers, the ultimate Victorian gentleman would be pleased. Queen Victoria’s sentiments aside, he might even be amused.

And so might the reading friends on your Christmas list. Check them out here:

 A Tincture of Murder: http://ning.it/1bmDLZ7 

A Most Inconvenient Death http://ning.it/1crHfKD