As a reviewer, even I could see the shitstorm brewing about a year off. The PR spokeswoman I always worked with (some of you know who I mean, but I’m not doing the name-drop thing) left for greener pastures in 2009, and she always came across to me as a bright, level-headed person. That was an easy clue. And her replacement’s inability to deliver even ebook ARCs with regularity was another. The third was my inability to find new Leisure releases at the PX until two months after the fact, when they used to be stocked with the entire catalogue more or less ON RELEASE DAY.

And two of those three things are small pieces in the big scheme of things. If you can’t manage delivery of your review copies, how many big things are you screwing up? Distribution for one, obviously. And my association with Dorchester was merely that of a brand-new reviewer. I can only imagine how much earlier some of the authors saw the clouds rolling in. Someone at that company needs to get their ass handed to them, in a big way.