Happy new year! What’s happening in 2012?

Hi all, and may I take this opportunity to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

There has been much happening in the world of Joe Hunter of late, and I’m pleased to announce that Dead Men’s Harvest – Joe Hunter 6 – has been met with favourable reviews in the UK. The paperback edition of Dead Men’s Harvest will go on general sale within a few days, on 5th January to be precise.

Those of you who prefer electronic books to paper these days will probably be pleased to hear that my UK publisher, Hodder and Stoughton, are due to release an anthology of six Joe Hunter short stories direct to Amazon Kindle. “Six of the Best” is now available for pre-order, but goes on general sale on 19th January 2012, so not long to wait. You can take a look here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Joe-Hunter-Short-Stories-ebook/dp/B006HAMCPI/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_2

The next big event in the Joe Hunter calendar is the release of the seventh action-packed book in the series called “No Going Back” on 16th February. Matt will be holding a book launch on or around that date, but details have yet to be finalised.

Here’s the blurb from No Going Back:

‘Jameson Walker approaches Joe Hunter when his daughter Jay and her friend Nicole go missing at a gas station in the Arizona desert while on a cross-country trek across the North American interior. He mentions that a robbery/homicide at the gas station as worrying as the girls were due to be in the vicinity at that time. Joe accepts the job of locating the girls, though not at first convinced there’s much to worry about. As Joe picks up the girls’ trail he discovers that other young women have also disappeared in the area, and comes across the brutish Logan family.’

‘No Going Back’ will be available from all major booksellers, and can also be purchased from various on-line sites.

In the USA, two Joe Hunter books hit the stands this winter. Both ‘Slash and Burn’ and ‘Cut and Run’ were released as mass market paperback originals, and are available from all places books are sold. Because of the popularity of the books, Matt has been asked to do a mini-tour of the US and on 12th January will be in Pittsburgh, on the 14th he’ll be in Chicago, and lastly on the 16th in Milwaukee.

Visit Matt’s blog here http://matthiltonbooks.blogspot.com for updates on times and locations of each appearance.

Matt will also be appearing at venues in the UK during the first two months of this year, including Wigan library on Thursday 26th January, and Bishop Aukland Townhall, County Durham, on Thursday 28th February. Again check on Matt’s blog for full details.

To ensure you keep up to date with all Joe Hunter and Matt Hilton news, please join them online.

http://www.matthiltonbooks.com is Matt’s official website

http://www.facebook.com/MattHiltonAuthor  for all Matt Hilton news on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joe-Hunter-Crime-Thrillers/153735557978125 for Joe Hunter specific news on Facebook.

@MHiltonauthor to follow Matt on Twitter.

Keep on keeping on

Matt

Joe Hunter: Six of the Best

 Joe Hunter: Six of the Best is an eBook collection of action-packed Joe Hunter tales with twists in the tail, and is now available for pre-order via Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006HAMCPI/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_alp_1mK2ob1P3W0DP

 

CUT and RUN is now available in the USA.

Cut and Run – the fourth high-octane Joe Hunter thriller – is now available in paperback from all major retailers in the USA.

New Look Cover for Dead Men’s Harvest in UK

In early January (5th) the UK paperback edition of Dead Men’s Harvest will go on general sale. I’m pleased to see a re-imagining of the cover and am indebted to a great design team at Hodder and Stoughton. Hope you like this new look, too.

Dead Men's Harvest - Joe Hunter 6 - UK paperback cover

CUT and RUN – Joe Hunter 4 US release impending

Hi all,

just a quick note to remind US readers that the fourth Joe Hunter thriller – CUT and RUN – will be released in paperback on Tuesday 29th November 2011. Yep, that’s less than a week away now. Hope you enjoy Joe Hunter Vs Luke Rickard.

Cut and Run - Joe Hunter 4

Six of the Best – Joe Hunter coming to eBooks

Coming in January next year is a collection of brand new never-seen-before Joe Hunter short stories that will be released by Hodder and Stoughton as an ebook via Amazon Kindle. Before anyone asks, no I’m not getting on the bandwagon of authors who are now releasing short stories onto Kindle as a way of making an extra buck (though admittedly it’s not bad recompense) but that I wanted to share these stories with Joe’s fans – old and new – in a wider format.

Regular followers of my books and blogs etc know that I’m a voracious writer, and that when I’m not penning the latest Joe Hunter book I can’t allow my writing fingers to settle and often come up with short stories or flash fiction. I share some of these stories here at the blog, or put them out into the world under pen names, but there are some I’ve held on to for some time – plus some brand new stories scripted for this collection – that deserve a wider audience. The collection will go out under the title “SIX OF THE BEST”.

No, it’s not a spanking book, though there might be a few sore butts after Joe’s done kicking them.

The title comes from the lead story, and yes, there are six stories in total, so it’s a double-header really.

Included in the collection are:

1. Six of the Best
2. Homecoming
3. Sand Dance
4. UV Ray
5. Instant Justice
6. The Other Side of the Street

plus there will be sample chapters from the upcoming Joe Hunter 7 – No Going Back – to whet your appetite.

Some may wonder about the process of writing short stories versus novels, so here’s my take on it:

The long and the short of it is this:

I’m one of those authors that simply love to write and the medium isn’t as important as putting words on paper. Therefore I’ll write in any style that suits the story I’m attempting to narrate. Often it will be suited to a full novel, but as regularly a story can be told in much fewer words, and its as likely for me to come up with a Joe Hunter story as a flash piece or short story as it is a full novel. Writing a novel takes many hours of slogging away at the keyboard, but that doesn’t mean that a short piece is any less a feat of endurance. With a short the rules of structure still apply, but in this case there is less room for error, so it has to be that more concise. Words cannot be wasted yet characterisation, setting, plot and – for a Joe Hunter story – pace are still essential to the telling of the tale. In other words, penning an effective short isn’t an easy get out, in fact they can be more troublesome than writing a full novel where you have more ground to establish the finer details.

So why do it?

The reason I write short stories is because they challenge me. I’ve written more than a dozen novels so I know I’ve got what it takes to deliver a full book. The novels are my bread and butter, my “must do’s”. However, with the short stories it’s different. I tend to write these as a form of enjoyment, and have fun with them along the way. It’s not unknown for me to pen shorts in different genres that include noir, crime, thriller, horror and sci-fi, but one thing that binds them all is that there’s a hefty dose of humour running throughout. That doesn’t mean to say that they’re laugh out loud funny, but that they have a quirk or turn of phrase, and I have fun coming up with a particular emphasis on a sting or twist in the tale. Often the story begins with a single word or phrase. Take the lead story from my collection “Six of the Best”: It’s an old English term that describes a form of corporal punishment. I couldn’t resist the idea of someone receiving their just desserts, I just had to find a way of incorporating the phrase into the narrative, without it becoming obvious from the get go. My Joe Hunter books are known for their fast-paced action, and with the Hunter short stories this remains true, where the phrases that influenced them help determine the forms of action. With this collection of stories I believe I’ve achieved what I set out to do. That is to deliver the same fast-paced action Joe Hunter’s readers have come to expect, while also being true to myself and having fun along the way. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did writing them.

The collection – Six of the Best – will be available from January 5th 2012 (and for pre-order soon) and will be very competitively priced, and initially will go out in the Amazon Kindle format. Further news about other formats will be made available as I receive it.

It’s Going to be Hot this Winter in the USA

Joe Hunter is set to heat up the cold winter months in the USA, with not one but two of his high-octane thrillers coming out back-to-back this October and November respectively. First up is Slash and Burn which should be on the stands within a few short weeks (end of October) and following hot on its heels will be Cut and Run. For those unfamiliar with the Joe Hunter series, these are books three and four respectively (following Dead Men’s Dust and Judgment and Wrath). Some people have been wondering what happened to the paperback edition of Judgment and Wrath and I have it on good authority that it should be released the following spring of 2012. I hope my American friends enjoy the latest books, and must thank you all for your patience. Over in the UK books five and six are already on the shelves, and hopefully sure to follow across the pond before too long. Thanks to all the wonderful feedback and support.