Anything new on the horizon from one of the best, Daniel Silva?

Jack Kennedy
Glenside, Pennsylvania

Daniel Silva's spy novels featuring Gabriel Allon have become modern-day classics, and his readers have come to expect a new one every February. Unfortunately, this year's book, The Messenger, has been delayed—though Silva's publicist at Putnam won't reveal why—and is now scheduled to be published on July 25. In Allon's latest adventure, photos found in the home of a recently killed al-Quaeda suspect reveal a plot for a large-scale attack. Can Israeli Intelligence foil the plot before it takes place?

PEACHY NEW SERIES

I have not seen any new books by Kathy Hogan Trocheck in a few years. Do you know why?

Lynda Beach
Acworth, Georgia

In fact, we do know why Kathy Hogan Trocheck hasn't published a Callahan Garrity or Truman Kicklighter book lately—and BookPage readers who read our 2003 interview with Trocheck should be clued in, too. In 2002, Trocheck left the standard whodunit format to branch out into chick lit novels with less prominent mystery plots. "Mystery fans are so brand conscious," she told BookPage. "When I wrote the first Truman book, my Callahan fans got angry with me because they thought I was basically abandoning Callahan." Taking a new name when she decided to shift genres—she selected Mary Kay Andrews, after her children Mary Kathleen and Andrew—avoided these issues, and brought her new fans as well.

In April, HarperCollins will publish her fourth book under the Andrews name, Savannah Breeze. In this sequel to Savannah Blues, Southern belle BeBe gets taken to the cleaners by a charming con man. Her only hope of financial redemption is restoring the rundown Breeze Inn.

SUN RISE

Can you tell me if Kent Anderson is still writing or retired or expired? I have read  two of his books (Sympathy for the Devil and Night Dogs) and both were outstanding. They were written in the late 1990s and I haven't seen or heard of any books since then.

Mike Dagani
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Kent Anderson is alive and well and living in Idaho, where he is at work on the third book in his Hanson quartet, tentatively titled Green Sun. Anderson tells BQ he hopes to have the novel finished "by the end of winter," which should please fans of his earlier books about Hanson, a troubled Vietnam vet who takes a post-war job patrolling the darkest corners of Portland as a city cop.

WE'LL DRINK TO THAT

I'm wondering when J.A. Konrath is going to come up with another Jack Daniels mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed his debut, Whiskey Sour.

Tanya Deer
Tulsa, Oklahoma

We propose a toast to Konrath's upcoming book, Rusty Nail. This third entry in his mystery series featuring Chicago Police Lt. Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels is due to hit bookstores in late June.

A former bartender with a knack for combining humor and suspense in his writing, Konrath says he was rejected by many publishers before landing his first book deal. He tells BQ that his own favorite cocktail is the whiskey sour, "which is great because people are always buying them for me. Perhaps I should have called my first book Filet Mignon."

Konrath and his family make their home in suburban Chicago, where they have dog also named Jack Daniels. "Jack loves walking on a leash and getting her belly scratched (the dog, not the cop—though maybe in a future book)," the author says.

To promote Rusty Nail, Konrath will set out this summer on a book tour, with a goal of visiting 500 bookstores in the lower 48 states during July and August. He invites any bookstore owners interested in scheduling a visit to contact him at haknort@comcast.net.