Contributing Editor Publishes E-Magazette
January 7, 2010 – Dan Harmon, Sandlapper's contributing editor, is collecting his 19th century mysteries in a new, modern format. "The Harper Chronicles" and "The Casebook of MacTavish," both set in post-Reconstruction South Carolina, will be available to readers in a quarterly "e-magazette." The separate-but-similar collections of short stories feature two crime reporter-sleuths of the era. Harmon has blended selections from the two sets with revived classic mystery fiction in the publication, The Illustrated Harper & MacTavish Reader. It's enhanced by notes from the annals of crime history, nuggets of information depicting life during the late 1800s, and a bit of detective work for the reader to conduct in the form of a quiz, "The Great Harper & MacTavish Historical Mystery Challenge." There's more: Subscribers receive weekly installments of never-before-published Harper and MacTavish stories developed in "cliffhanger" format.
"The Harper Chronicles" follow the adventures of Harper, an eccentric, Scottish-born crime reporter in the state capital who loathes sensationalism and often is caught up personally in the episodes he uncovers. Volume One, The Chalk Town Train & Other Tales, was published in 2001 (softbound and available in the Sandlapper store, $16.75 for non-members, $15.08 for members). "The Chalk Town Train," the book's opening story, is based loosely on the saga of a real-life bandit of the 1890s in Lexington County.
"MacTavish" made his debut in August 2008 in Spartanburg Today magazine. An episode from his "Casebook" now appears monthly in a companion magazine, Boiling Springs Today.
"Imagine a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Mark Twain and you get some idea of these entertaining stories," Sarah Cuthbertson, magazine editor for the Historical Novel Society in England, wrote of Harper. Rachel A Hyde in CrimeThruTime called The Chalk Town Train & Other Tales "one of the best—and most imaginative—books I have read this year.
Harmon's purposes in offering the electronic magazette (files are distributed in .pdf format) are manifold. "Obviously, I want to introduce Harper and MacTavish to new audiences. I also hope to interest modern generations in the elegant and exciting works of authors like Doyle, Poe, Edwards, Orczy, Post and Chesterton. Their classics are little known today, especially among young readers. I want to offer a glimpse of what life was like for people who lived during those decades, especially in the American South.
The design of the magazette harks to the plain but functional style of periodicals more than a century ago—Leslie's Illustrated, The Strand, Scribner's, etc. Vintage art has been selected carefully for illustration.
The Illustrated Harper & MacTavish Reader is an extremely time-intensive labor of love that's hardly likely to prosper him, Harmon knows. "I anticipate a very small readership initially and a long, arduous path to success, if it's to succeed at all. But Lord willing, I think it's worth the effort. If I can do nothing more than generate a bit of new interest in Uncle Abner, Father Brown, Sherlock Holmes and Molly of Scotland Yard, I'll have accomplished something worthwhile. If I can introduce more folks to my own two sleuth characters, all the better."
Subscribers receive the quarterly publication via e-mail the first Saturdays in January, April, July and October. Weekly "cliffhanger" installments, from three to eight parts each, begin the second Saturdays of each quarter. "It's Saturday reading," the editor muses, "especially cozy if the weather's dreary.
Harmon has written more than 70 books, most of them juvenile educational works. Based in Spartanburg, the Lexington native has written thousands of freelance articles for regional publications and for such national periodicals as Music Journal, The New York Times and Renaissance. He edits The Lawyer's PC, a technology newsletter for legal professionals published by Thomson Reuters/West.
For more information, visit the author's Web site at www.danieleltonharmon.com or send him an inquiry at dan@danieleltonharmon.com.
