It may come as some surprise to you that I am the Batman of classic crime blogging.  Not merely because this blog represents my true face that must remain hidden beneath a socially-acceptable façade, nor due to all posts being despatched from a convoluted series of secret caves beneath my gigantic mansion on the outskirts of a fictional city.  No, rather because for the opening couple of months of this undertaking I have stuck, dramatically, to a single rule – an immutable and unyielding precept that has underpinned practically everything I have posted.

Anti-climactically, it is this: I have only reviewed or featured books that are currently in print and available to buy.  There’s no particular reason for this, but starting out I needed to impose some restrictions to help me focus what I was doing (I had no idea how it was going to turn out, after all) and that seemed an easy one.  It’s also quite nice as a reader to read a review, think ‘Hmmm, that sounds excellent’ and then be able to go (virtually or otherwise) straight to a shop and say (virtually or otherwise) “Book-keep, five of your finest Rupert Pennys, my good man” and leave with them either in your possession or at least likely to be dispatched in the next few days.  As a corollary to this, I have also only featured images of the most recent edition’s cover, the one you’d be likely to see if you were to go and look for it yourself, rather than necessarily the cover of the version that I read.

Well, no more.  From now on – partly due to my involvement in Bev Hankins’ Vintage Mystery Bingo Scavenger Hunt over at My Reader’s Block, partly just because I want to talk about some of the other books that I read – the gloves are off.  From now on, reviews of out of print books – tagged OOP, rather than with the publisher – shall be appearing, and I’ll be all up in yo’ bizznazz with the actual cover of the books I’ve read (and maybe the most recent cover where relevant, too, if you think you can handle that much stimulation – comments below, please).

I appreciate everyone else has been doing this for ages, and that it is nothing special and certainly doesn’t warrant a post all of its own explaining that this is what will happen from now on.  But, well, there you go.  I hope this notice has caused you no offence, and I wish you and those close to you a happy, prosperous, and book-filled 2016.