Subterranean Press posted this on their website today:
Robert McCammon’s THE QUEEN OF BEDLAM in Stock and Shipping
Those who’ve been collecting Robert McCammon’s Matthew Corbett series will be pleased—as we are!—that the second entry, The Queen of Bedlam, is now available as a signed, limited edition that matches Mister Slaughter,The Providence Rider, and The River of Souls. Each of the titles has a different flavor, with Queen being a long (over 630 pages) excursion into the darkest corners of Colonial era New York, as Matthew Corbett tracks the killer known only as “The Masker.”
When it was originally published, The Queen of Bedlam drew a starred review from Publishers Weekly:
Set in Manhattan in 1703, this spellbinding sequel to Speaks the Nightbird (2002) from bestseller McCammon finds Matthew Corbett, a 23-year-old magistrate’s clerk, on the trail of the Masker, a killer who stalks prominent businessmen. Matthew stumbles on the bodies of two of the Masker’s victims, including pederast Eben Ausley, the headmaster of the orphanage Matthew once reluctantly called home… McCammon brilliantly captures colonial New York and closes with a tantalizing cliffhanger that suggests more exciting sleuthing to come.
About the Book:
Matthew Corbett first appeared in 2002’s Speaks the Nightbird, the novel which signaled Robert McCammon’s return to fiction after a decade long absence. Five years later, in another significant event, Matthew reappeared in The Queen of Bedlam, a book that firmly established him as the central figure in the best historical adventure series going.
The Queen of Bedlam opens in 1702, some three years after the harrowing experiences of Speaks the Nightbird. Matthew is now living in the nascent metropolis of New York City and has found unsatisfying employment as a poorly paid clerk to a local magistrate. At this juncture, two related events take place that will radically alter Matthew’s future. One is the advent of a murderous predator—popularly known as the Masker—who terrorizes the city. The other is Matthew’s recruitment by the Herrald Agency, an early prototype of the classic private detective agency. Under the auspices of his new employer, Matthew, together with his mentor, Hudson Greathouse, travels to a mental hospital in rural New Jersey, where he meets an unidentified woman known simply as the Queen of Bedlam, a woman who may hold the key to the Masker’s identity.
The Queen of Bedlam is a crime story, of course, and a genuinely enthralling one. More than that, it is a portrait of colonial New York so vibrant and richly detailed that it is almost palpable. The sights, smells, and sounds—the sheer physical reality of that time and place—are drawn with the sure hand of a master storyteller. Supplementing all this is a varied cast of supporting characters who are by turns comic, bizarre, intriguing, endearing, and, in some instances, terrifying. At the center of it all is Matthew Corbett, a gifted young man beginning to discover who—and what—he is meant to become. He is a hero suited to his times, and a fictional creation destined to endure for a very long time to come.
Limited: 374 signed numbered copies, housed in a custom slipcase: $125
Lettered: 26 signed, deluxe bound copies, housed in a custom traycase: $500
