January Publication

Forge, together with the Mystery Writers of America, launches a reprint series of Edgar winners with Donald E. Westlake's masterful tale of a hapless chump who's every con man's favorite patsy, God Save the Mark: A Novel of Crime and Confusion (1967). Mystery guru Otto Penzler provides a new introduction, as he will to every book in the series, which will run to three titles per year. ($24.95 240p ISBN 0-765-30918-1; $14.95 paper -30919-X)

December Publications

Five Star presents three novels from seasoned crime pros: Nancy Baker Jacobs's suspenseful tale of a young mother whose abusive husband winds up a corpse, Ricochet, ($25.95 257p ISBN 1-59414-076-6); Martin Edwards's first novel of marital woe and murder, hitherto only available in the U.K., All the Lonely People, which comes with an endorsement from Edward Hoch ($25.95 278p -069-3); and screenwriter James David Buchanan's zany Moon & Muldoon, about a piloting duo whose specialty is retrieving stolen airplanes ($25.95 268p -073-1).

Fans of Jon L. Breen's baseball mysteries will welcome the Edgar-winning author's Kill the Umpire: The Calls of Ed Gorgon, which includes 16 cases featuring the major league umpire known as the "horsehide sleuth," one of them original to this volume. The striking jacket art, showing bloody bats crossed over blue pinstripes, says it all. (Crippen & Landru [www.crippenlandru.com], $42 182p ISBN 1-932009-18-3; $17 paper -19-1)