Though You Were Dead: Craine Sketches

Above, some rough endpaper sketches for our upcoming Terry Griggs's novel Thought You Were Dead. Dead is a bit of a departure for Terry, a comic-noir biblio-mystery, the first in a projected series of mysteries about literary researcher/reluctant detective/slacker Chellis Beith. The novel turns the mystery form on its head, bludgeoning flat language and puritanical sensibilities with evident glee. It's one of the silliest, funniest, word-drunk books I've read in quite a while, a linguistic joyride, a Griggsian romp. The Globe once reviewed an earlier book of Griggs's, saying it was like reading Robertson Davies on speed: if that's the case Thought You Were Dead would be Christie on crack.

This will also be our first illustrated novel. In addition to the endpapers, there will be another half dozen or so full page illustrations by Nick Craine, giving the book an appropriate pulp feel. Should have some of the final drawings to show you in the next week or so.

We'll be republishing Terry's first collection of short stories, Quickening, alongside Dead, complete with a previously unpublished -- unless you were one of the 26 people who bought the story from Metcalf's Magnum Reading series 17 years ago -- story, Tag.