Boisjoly Back in Buccaneering Baffler!

Posted on by Standard 6

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Mystery and Malice aboard RMS Ballast, the eighth Anty Boisjoly Mystery, embarks for the open seas on March 1st and, finally, we have a pirate number.

Anty, Vickers, Inspector Wittersham, and a passenger list of howling eccentrics find themselves prey to the sway and spray of the Scilly Seas when what at first seems a simple, unexplainable, locked-stateroom murder twists into a tale of buried treasure, perilous weather and dangerous endeavours at sea.

When we first embark, romance is in the ocean air as Anty conspires to win the heart of Frederica Hannibal-Pool aboard her uncle’s yacht, but when dashing Dare Flashburn joins the journey telling tales of pirate gold, the moonlight crossing becomes a stormy odyssey of mutiny and murder and mal de mer.

Mystery and Malice aboard RMS Ballast is available on pre-order as of here and now.

There’s a cryptic clue to one of many mysteries aboard RMS Ballast in this month’s newsletter which also features two new Anty cartoons. Get your February newsletter now while supplies last:  http://indefensiblepublishing.com/newsletters/

Spam Recipes

Posted on by Standard 2

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Example of spam, from this February’s newsletter and the seance scene in Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling.

Recently a global new methodology has been introduced to combat junk mail. The measure, in simple terms, requires that mass mailings be sent from a high-level domain the DNS settings for which include specific DMARC entries pointing to network-traceable reverse neuromix memblemeasures, the NOSTRIL values of which are furismically distributed. It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s it in a nutshell.

And of course there was much rejoicing, because who likes spam? Your spam folder likes spam, that’s who, and in fact it likes it so much that, in conjunction with the above-mentioned counter-measures, it sometimes extends its reach beyond its grasp.

My very unscientific dart-in-the-dark analysis suggests that roughly half of Anty Boisjoly’s newsletters are being thusly diverted to the recipient’s junk mail folder. I’ve since implemented the required DNS changes (or, rather, I think I have — I may well have accidentally hacked into NASA) but, what with the notoriously closed-minded habit-prone practices of your poorly socialised email algorithm, once a spam always a spam.

So, if you signed up for the Anty Boisjoly intermittent newsletter and didn’t get one, there’s an excellent chance that it’s in your spam folder (or was once in your spam folder but has since been digested). If you add the source email address (pj.fitzsimmons@indefensiblepublishing.com) to your contacts or simply identify the newsletter as not spam, that should solve the problem for the future. If you can’t find it at all don’t hesitate for an instant to write and say so, again, to pj.fitzsimmons@indefensiblepublishing.com.

The latest number is out, by the way, and so if you don’t have the February edition announcing a new Anty Boisjoly, the next audiobook release date, a cryptic clue and two cartoons, and it’s not in your spam folder, it’s possible that you haven’t signed up yet. The solution for this, happily, is uncomplicated, and can be found here: http://indefensiblepublishing.com/newsletters/

A Twisty Misty Listeny Mystery

Posted on by Standard 3

Production is sufficiently advanced to lay claim to a publication date for the audiobook of The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich, Anty’s twisty misty whisky mystery.

Tim Bruce returns this time as Anty and Vickers and two entire Scottish villages, sheep included, and manages to keep everyone distinct and distilled and delightful, even after the whisky kicks in during a golf match which is frankly hilarious on paper but which Tim raises to a pro tour de force.

In The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich, Anty travels to the timeless source waters of Glen Glennegie to help decide the fate of his family’s favourite ferment, but an impossible locked room murder is only one of a multitude of mysteries that try Anty’s wits and witticisms to their northern limit.

Time trickles down on the traditional tipple as Anty unravels family feuds, ruptured romance, shepherdless sheep, and a series of suspiciously surfacing secrets to sort out who killed whom and how and why and who might be next to die.

We know from experience that the universe laughs at those who announce specific publication dates for their audiobooks, so let’s say that The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich will be available on audio from around March 1st. In practice, it should start appearing in your favourite storefronts from February 21st and then gently age in a barrel of Audible until some special moment in early March.

Anty Boisjoly Newsletter Archive

Posted on by Standard 6

antyboisjoly-merry-christmasSomehow over the last year, on rare occasion, Anty Boisjoly escaped the books and appeared in several single-frame cartoons, inspired by the sort of thing that Punch was doing in the 1920s.

In the main, these cartoons were happy enough doing what social media content is meant to do — make a few billionaires microscopically richer — but then I reserved a couple of them for the Christmas number of the Anty Boisjoly Intermittent Newsletter where, it turns out, they received a good deal more appreciation.carnaby-cartoon

The Christmas newsletter also included a cover reveal, a golf match, and an audiobook update. It was a much more substantial newsletter and several readers replied with some very nice and encouraging words, which have served to shape forthcoming newsletter policy

Anty Boisjoly has rather a lot planned for 2024 and it’s all going to be announced first in the newsletters, which will accordingly include much more insider information, early discount tip-offs, clues, and cartoons. And there’s now a newsletter archive, where back issues can be found and where new editions are posted, four weeks after subscribers have had a look at them. Why should they be the only ones to suffer?

Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling is Finally Finished and Finessed

Posted on by Standard 4

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Anty Boisjoly is back with his reddest-of-herringed, twistiest-of-turned, locked-roomiest manor house mystery yet.

It’s a classic, manor house, mystery-within-a-locked-room-mystery for Anty Boisjoly, when a death is foretold by a mystic that Anty’s sure is a charlatan. But when an impossible murder follows the foretelling, Anty and his old ally and nemesis Inspector Wittersham must sift the connivance, contrivance, misguidance, and reliance on pseudoscience of the mad manor and its oddball inhabitants before the killer strikes again.

Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling is available from November 9th because that was the earliest pre-order date available. In fact I’ve never fully understood the perceived value of pre-orders, but I’m told that it’s is the only way to acquire this ‘hype’ that’s got everyone talking. It’s also the only way to have this link: https://mybook.to/ficklehouse

Reckoning at the Riviera Royale Real Release on Audible

Posted on by Standard 3

riviera-audio-coverTwo weeks ago was meant to be the official launch of Reckoning at the Riviera Royale audiobook and, technically, it was, except for Audible, who likes to play hard-to-get.

Finally, Tim Bruce and his personal cast of a dozen accents and attitudes is on Audible as of today (October 25th) reading Reckoning at the Riviera Royale, Anty’s fifth locked-room puzzler.

In Reckoning at the Riviera Royale, we finally meet Anty’s mum, who features among the suspects when Anty determines that what at first appears to be a simple trampling of a clown dressed as a mouse in an elephant’s cage on a tropical island in the middle of the night turns out to be something out of the ordinary.

https://www.amazon.com/Reckoning-Riviera-Royale-Boisjoly-Mysteries/dp/B0CLMPPZS5

Release of the Riviera Royale

Posted on by Standard 10

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Reckoning at the Riviera Royale is now live on Audible at https://www.amazon.com/Reckoning-Riviera-Royale-Boisjoly-Mysteries/dp/B0CLMPPZS5

UPDATE: It turns out that new titles can take as much as thirty days to reach the shelves of various platforms. I’m sorry that I didn’t know that when I announced the 13th as the launch date, but I’ll leave it as it is because a) the real date is now ‘sometime in the next thirty days’ and b) it’s my mistake and I should own up to it.

riviera-audio-cover

Production is now complete on the audiobook of Reckoning at the Riviera Royale and it’s due to make itself heard on the 13th of October (that’s Friday the 13th, quite deliberately — the gods of gaffes and scheduling have been so kind to us we felt it just had to be some sort of sign).

The talented Tim Bruce returns, again and again, as a wide cast of accents and eccentrics, to narrate Anty’s fifth impossible poser in which his mother features among the accused when what appears to be a simple matter of a clown dressed as a mouse trampled by a kind-hearted elephant turns out to be a case of locked-room murder.

This milestone also represents a return to regular releases of Anty Boisjoly in audiobook. Next will be The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich in time for Christmas. This also means a closer collaboration between author and actor, including a new tradition of quick and quirky bonus features (keep listening after the conclusion of Reckoning for The Curious Encounter at a London Counter).

Production on Reckoning at the Riviera Royale was done by Raconteurs LLC (​​https://raconteurs.co.uk/) and their calm, confident competence is why we’re meeting the release schedule without a single hiccup or hitch.

Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling Cover Reveal

Posted on by Standard 8

ficklehouse

In the absence of a concrete release date, which was last seen consorting with some unruly delays and dubious planning around the end of the month, here’s the all-but-guaranteed-final-draft of the cover of Foreboding Foretelling at Ficklehouse Felling.

It’s a classic, manor house, mystery-within-a-locked-room-mystery when a death is foretold by a mystic that Anty Boisjoly is sure is a charlatan. But when an impossible murder follows the foretelling, Anty and his old ally and nemesis Inspector Wittersham must sift the connivance, contrivance, misguidance,  and reliance on pseudoscience of the household and its haunted history before the killer strikes again.

Avoiding spoilage, FF at FF splices the classic locked room manor house mystery with a bit of Clue to a singular spin that’s rather by definition a bit more populous, stagey, and subtextual than previous Boisjoly puzzlers. It’s also a bit longer, if that goes any distance in excusing the delay in getting this book to the fixtures and finishings stage.

Reveal of the Riviera Royale

Posted on by Standard 4

riviera-audio-cover

This headline is so wildly inaccurate that it amounts to a bait-and-switch. This isn’t a reveal of the cover of Reckoning at the Riviera Royale, which came out six months ago. It’s not even a reveal of the cover of the audio version of Reckoning at the Riviera Royale, unless a square version of the existing cover counts as something deserving of a reveal.
It is, however, the official announcement of the rebooted audiobook release schedule, starting with Reckoning at the Riviera Royale in, we hope, October.
The long pause in audiobook publication has been due to the original publisher’s frankly baffling decision to concentrate their limited resources on titles and series which actually make money. Their contribution will be missed, but only so much because the talented Tim Bruce has agreed to remain the voice of Anty Boisjoly.
As long as this has taken, it’s only come this far this fast because of the encouraging words of readers and listeners. I’d very much like to express my appreciation for the patience and, for that matter, the impatience, and delightful messages of support.

Mystery Mystery Launch Solved!

Posted on by Standard 1

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Today is launch day for The Case of the Case of Kilcladdich, and the link is live at https://mybook.to/kilcladdich

Anty Boisjoly travels to the timeless source waters of Glen Glennegie to help decide the fate of his favourite whisky, but an impossible locked room murder is only one of a multitude of mysteries that try Anty’s wits and witticisms to their northern limit.

Time trickles down on the traditional tipple as Anty unravels family feuds, ruptured romance, shepherdless sheep, and a series of suspiciously surfacing secrets to sort out who killed whom and how and why and who might be next to die.