In her October 26 review of Laura Lippman's new novel, In Big Trouble, the Village Voice's Elizabeth Pincus said, "There's a pulpy little thrill in finding the best mystery writing around within the gaudy, palm-sized pages of a mass-market release."

But she also noted that Lippman "more than deserves a hardcover breakout."

Come next summer, that's going to happen for this Baltimore-based author, whose four-book series featuring hometown journalist-turned-PI Tess Monaghan, who is "Charm City personified, sharing a kinship with the toughs of Homicide, with the tender her s of middle-period John Waters," noted Pincus.

Avon executive editor Carrie Feron, who has served as Baltimore Sun reporter Lippman's editor for all her books, told PW that Lippman's next novel, another Monaghan mystery called The Sugar House, will debut this summer as, yes, a Morrow hardcover in the new Avon/HarperCollins world.

Feron has been happy to "start with a sturdy paperback shelf" for her author, but timing is right for breakout, since orders have improved for Lippman books with every release.

Lippman also just got another boost in sales, thanks to October 24 feature on the author on CBS Sunday Morning, as part of reporter Anthony Mason's well-researched mystery series, (which is becoming a monthly feature, with the working title Fine Print). In the segment, Lippman shares her writing habits (she forces herself to face the keyboard for two hours every day before work) and tells how her day job inspires her fiction (the true story of an Italian-ice stand owner's accidental shooting of a 13-year-old boy served as the basis for Butchers Hill.)

"Tess is someone I might have been if I'd lost my job and been forced to reinvent myself," Lippman told CBS. "She's me, with fewer lucky breaks."

The CBS story was Lippman's latest lucky break: Feron said typical weekly orders for Lippman's books doubled the week following that segment--and doubled again the following week.

Given this track record, Lippman's hardcover is expected to start off with a healthy first printing. "Let's put it this way: she's not going to have to go out with 5000 copies," said Feron, who hasn't yet detemined the hardcover first print numbers.

Agent Vicky Bijur has been charting and nurturing the momentum. The critical attention to Lippman's work has been impressive. Baltimore Blues was nominated for a Shamus award for best first novel. Charm City won the Edgar award, as well as the Shamus for best paperback original, and was nominated for an Anthony award for best paperback original as well. Butchers Hill won the Anthony for best paperback original, and an Agatha award for best novel. The book was also nominated for Edgar, Shamus and Macavity awards.

Bijur has made some foreign deals for Lippman as well, selling her first three books to Japan, to Hayakawa, and in France to J'ai Lu. The Mystery Guild has book club rights to Charm City, Butchers Hill and In Big Trouble. Dramatic rights become a stronger possibility as Lippman's series--and popularity--grows.

The Sugar House is the first in a new three-book, six-figure deal. Unlike In Big Trouble, which took the series heroine to Texas, the new novel brings readers back to Baltimore. The title refers, as locals know, to the Domino's Sugar factory, a prominant city landmark.

Tupac Shakur Lives on in P try

Pocket Books and its MTV Books imprint are looking to replicate pop singer Jewel's star-driven success with the November publication of The Rose That Grew from Concrete, a collection of p try by the slain, enormously popular rapper Tupac Shakur, written when he was between the ages of 17 and 19.

The book was acquired by Pocket Books editor Tracy Sherrod, after a heated auction, from agent Jack Horner of ICM, who represented the Shakur estate. Pocket began with a planned 60,000-copy first printing and added 5000 copies before publication for an initial release of 65,000.

The book includes a preface by Afeni Shakur, Tupac's mother; a foreword by p t Nikki Giovanni, an unabashed fan of Shakur (she even has his trademark "thuglife" tattoo on her own forearm); and an introduction by Leila Steinberg, Shakur's manager. The book consists of 72 short p ms with reproductions of the original handwritten p ms on facing pages.

The book was compiled by Afeni Shakur, with assistance from Steinberg and Sherrod. MTV suggested using the reproductions of Shakur's original pages. MTV is broadcasting a 30-second commercial and rerunning a biography of Shakur produced for its popular Biorhythm program. The hip-hop magazine The Source, which has first serial rights, is planning a seven-page spread on the p ms and is sponsoring a party in New York City with a guest list featuring some of the biggest names in hip-hop.

Steinberg met Shakur when he first began to write these p ms. She hopes the p ms (which touch on love, poverty, politics and violence) will change the public perception of Shakur as a profane, violence-prone gangster-rapper. "He was the most gifted person I ever met. He could articulate serious issues so well. Tupac the gangster-rapper was just a marketing ploy used by the record companies," she told PW. "He was misunderstood. Tupac was universal and I want people beyond music fans to pay attention to his voice."

--Calvin Reid

The Tie-In

te Neues Rushes Out Buena Vista Social Club Appreciation

Tiny New York-based art book publisher te Neues is tagging onto the Cuban music revival prompted by the hit documentary film Buena Vista Social Club.

It has just signed up and will crash-release for March a $24.95 horizontal-format paperback companion title to the film, also to be called Buena Vista Social Club, written by Donata and Wim Wenders.

Wim, who directed the film, will write text to accompany the Spanish/English lyrics of the Cuban music, as will American musicians Ry and Joaquim Cooder. Donata, who took photos during the filming, will include her work in the book as well.

While major trade houses were apparently sniffing around the project when it was shopped at the Frankfurt Book Fair, te Neues ultimately won because of its co-edition history with originating publisher Schirmer/Mosel, the German house that published Wenders's first book, Written in the West, which will serve as a model for the new book.

Michael Gray, director of sales and marketing for te Neues, told PW that the acquisition was made not only on the merits of the project itself, but as a jumpstart to the house's stepped-up publishing program now that Prestel, the German publisher it used to distribute, is opening a U.S. office and will sell direct next year.

And while the book has lost some sales by coming out well after the movie's initial release, Gray believes the March pub date offers plenty of opportunities. The film is a strong candidate for an Oscar, with the Academy Awards 2000 set to air March 26. And members of the Buena Vista Social Club musical troupe are expected to come to this country on a national tour soon as well.

Indeed, the renewed interest in the Cuban music featured in the film has become its own, arguably larger phenomenon. The soundtrack CD has already won a Grammy Award and sold 800,000 copies in the U.S.; it has sold 1,000,000 copies internationally.

Gray is hoping to coordinate with Warner Records division Nonesuch, which is distributing the soundtrack, on some cross-promotion and showcasing. As it is, the house is starting out with a 20,000 first printing, perhaps the largest, Gray said, in the house's history. --J.Q.

Small Press Success

Lyons Roars with WWII/Adventure Reprints

Browsing on Broadway one day, Lyons Press president Tony Lyons spotted a beat-up old copy of We Die Alone, British historian David Howarth's 1955 account of Norwegian Jan Baalsrud's amazing attempt at Nazi resistance (and escape by reinderr sled).

Lyons forked over two bucks, figuring the book could fit the house's war/adventure canon, which includes The Long Walk, an account of an escape from a Siberian prison camp, another reprint from the '50s that has been particularly successful as a 1997 Lyons Press trade paperback release, with 100,000 copies sold to date.

Well, the "investment" has paid off. Sure, Lyons may have had to cough up a whopping extra $2500 to acquire rights to We Die Alone from the author's estate, but the new reprint, released last month, has already sold out of its 15,000 first printing. The press is planning a second printing of 15,000 copies.

A new introduction by bestselling WWII historian Stephen Ambrose is, of course, helping, but the demand is coming in part from some unexpected media this backlist book has generated. The New York Times ran a welcome but brief mention, but better still, the Chicago Tribune devoted feature space to it and National Geographic Adventure featured the new edition of We Die Alone alongside heavyweight new releases by Peter Maas (The Terrible Hours) and Jonathan Raban (Passage to Juneau).

"I think a lot of people remember the book and have a fondness for it," said Lyons sales director Bill Wolfsthal, who is fond himself of the scene where the frostbitten Baalsrud self-amputates his t s.

Lyons Press's reputation in this area also helped clinch History Book Club and BOMC deals for the book, and rights were just sold to Cannongate in the U.K.

And Lyons isn't resting on these laurels. Its spring list features more adventure/war story reprints: Captain James Riley's Sufferings in Africa: The Astonishing Account of a New England Sea Captain Enslaved by North Africans, first published in 1815; and two nearly half-century-old books by Robert H. Bates and Charles S. Houston, K2: The Savage Mountain and Five Miles High, both about attempts at the world's most difficult climb. --J.Q.