The Outfit is Out

 I'm sure there's a pun title there I'm missing, but I'm playing catch-up here, having somehow managed to forget the release date of my own book, so it'll have to do.  Strictly speaking, the e-book and I assume the audiobook are already out as of the first of this month and the UK print edition is released today, which the US print edition should also have been, but mysterious and unforeseen factors have pushed it back a couple of weeks and it'll now be landing on the 16th.  Still, that's only a couple of weeks, right?  With everything that's going on in the world right now, it's hard to begrudge a two week delay!

As for whether or not you ought to grab a copy of The Outfit in whatever format and at whatever time, obviously that's between you and your conscience, and I'm sure there are lots of people out there who have no interest in reading the bizarre ripped-from-true-life tale of how the future Uncle Joe Stalin and his merry band of Bolshevik cutthroats pulled off one of the most outrageous open-air robberies in history, getting away with a small fortune that they then somehow how to smuggle out of a city under total lockdown and find some way to spend when the news of their misdeeds had spread through every corner of Europe.  I admit, that's the kind of cosy, everyday tale that's unlikely to rouse the more thrill-seeking of readers, but hopefully there are at least one or two people out there who can do without the excitement of chases and gunfights and explosions (okay, it has all of those too) and tolerate a few hours of musty history.  Well, if you think that might be you, here's the blurb:

Lies and double-crosses, secret police and explosions, a carriage chase, a mattress stuffed with cash and a one-eyed master of disguise…

In 1907, the revolutionary Joseph Djugashvili – who would later take the name Joseph Stalin – met with an old friend, a clerk at the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire, for a glass of milk. Over talk of national pride, the spirit of the new century and Djugashvili’s poetry, they agreed the beginnings of a plan.

With the aid of the Outfit, Djugashvili’s hardened crew of “expropriators,” they would pull off the biggest, bloodiest and most daring robbery in Georgia’s history, and ruthlessly change the direction of the Bolshevik revolution forever...

The Outfit is available in e-book, audiobook, UK paperback and very soon US paperback, from all good book retailers.  And probably all bad book retailers, too, I'd imagine, but best not to buy from them, eh?