Dutch Threat

by Josh Pachter

My first short story appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1968. Fifty-five years later, my first novel -- Dutch Threat -- was published by Genius Book Publishing.

I wrote the book much earlier. I'm not sure when exactly, but I know that my short story "The Milky Way" came out in a mass-market-paperback-sized magazine called A Matter of Crime in 1988, and the introduction to that story mentions that it's a sequel to my "forthcoming" novel. (We reprinted "The Milky Way" at the back of Dutch Threat.)

I also know that I sent the book to my friend René Appel around 2016 and asked him what he thought of it. His reaction was that it would work better as a short story, and the two of us wound up condensing it into one, which was published in EQMM's September/October 2017 issue as "A Woman's Place." (The novel is written in the first person, narrated by an American graduate student named Jack Farmer. The short story, however, is told in the third person, and Jack doesn't appear! I don't agree that it works better as a short story, but I do think it works well both ways, and I hope readers will agree....)

Prepublication, I asked a couple of writer friends to blurb the book, and here's what they had to say:

“In this wonderful debut novel by an accomplished master of the mystery short story, Josh Pachter delivers a rollicking classic-style whodunit with wit and charm.” Steve Steinbock, EQMM

“Dutch Threat has wit, charm, and lovely crisp prose—everything that’s great about Josh Pachter’s short fiction. His debut novel was a long time coming, but it’s well worth the wait!” Tom Mead, author of Death and the Conjuror

Kristopher Zgorski did a cover reveal on his BOLOBooks blog on August 18, 2023, and the next day Janet Rudolph ran an essay I wrote about the book on her Mystery Fanfare blog. The book officially launched on September 1, and I was interviewed that day on the Wicked Authors blog. On September 16, I wrote about the book on the SleuthSayers blog, and on September 25 on Debra Goldstein's.

You can order the trade paperback from Genius Book Publishing here and the trade paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions from Amazon here. (The audio version was narrated by Casey Finnegan and is also available from Audible at this link.)

Dutch Threat was named one of five finalists for the Left Coast Crime convention's Lefty Award in the Best Debut Mystery Novel category, for Malice Domestic's Agatha Award in the Best First Novel category, and for Mystery Readers International's Macavity Award in the Best First Mystery category. Win or lose, what a thrill to make the finals for these three prestigious honors!

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