“The Wicked Gambler” is a character who appears in one of the stories in the upcoming collection of stories from Matthew Corbett’s world, Seven Shades of Evil. In his author photo for the book, Robert McCammon had makeup artist and photographer Amanda Chapman create “The Wicked Gambler.”

Robert McCammon has written a new short story entitled “The Wicked Gambler and His Walking Cane” to tell the origin of the walking cane that can be seen in the author photo.

“The Wicked Gambler and His Walking Cane”

The walking cane is the prize in an Alabama Booksmith giveaway that will take place at the Seven Shades of Evil launch party on Saturday, October 28, 2023! For details about the party and how to enter the giveaway contest, please read the June 26 post Alabama Booksmith: October Launch Event and a Giveaway!

The author photo for Seven Shades of Evil and huge news from The Alabama Booksmith!!

Robert McCammon as “The Wicked Gambler”

Robert McCammon’s walking stick is going to one lucky fan!

The elegant walking stick Robert McCammon used in his period photo shoot for Seven Shades of Evil will belong to one lucky fan when the book is published. The first 500 signed first editions purchased from The Alabama Booksmith will come with an entry in a drawing that will take place at the launch party. All previous pre-orders from The Alabama Booksmith have already been entered.

Seven Shades of Evil launch party set

The Alabama Booksmith announces details of the official launch party for Seven Shades of Evil. The event will take place on Saturday, October 28, 2023. At 2:30, in the upstairs auditorium, Mr. McCammon will talk about the new book and take questions. At 3:30, he will draw the name of the lucky winner of the beautiful walking stick and then go downstairs to sign books.

Because of limited space for the talk, reservations are required. There is no charge for tickets, but they must be requested as books are purchased. Each copy purchased from The Alabama Booksmith may receive one seat. No reservations are needed for the booksigning, and space is unlimited.

You can pre-order a signed first edition of Seven Shades of Evil here:
https://www.alabamabooksmith.com/signed-copies/seven-shades-evil

Robert McCammon, June 2021

Hello, all!

I finished The King of Shadows toward the end of April. Since then I’ve been resting up because as I think you’ll understand when you read the book, it was quite a lot to put together. For one thing, it took me a while to refine what began simply as a ‘what-if?’ idea that at first seemed so outlandish and ‘out there’ it couldn’t possibly work. Well, I’m happy to say it did, but not without a lot of thrashing and gnashing. Matthew and Company came through for me once again. I’m pleased to say it’s a hefty book too, running about 560 pages.

I wanted The King of Shadows to be completely different from anything that had come before, and I wanted it to have that ‘weird’ and ‘otherworldly’ edge. Also I became very interested in the backstories of both Cardinal Black and Maccabeus DeKay…how did they become what they are? So you’ll find in The King of Shadows the stories of how the young Adam Black became the infamous Cardinal, and how “Mac” DeKay devolved from being a wealthy young man faithful to his father and involved in the sport of horse racing to being the scarred—and soul-scarred—and masked creature of the ‘present’.

Another thing I wanted to play with was the idea that instead of a human antagonist, a physical place could be antagonistic. Thus you’ll find in The King of Shadows a beautiful Mediterranean island called Golgotha that hides a multitude of secrets, and puts both Matthew and Hudson at risk like never before…but maybe not in the way you would expect!

Next up will be a book of seven short stories involving Matthew, Hudson, Minx Cutter, and Katherine Herrald titled Seven Shades of Evil. Some of these stories have previously appeared in other places, but I believe there will be at least three new ones and two of those will be “novelette” length. Seven Shades of Evil will be sort of a compendium of various “problems” Matthew and Company are called upon to solve during Matthew’s career with the Herrald Agency—these being done in the time between the spans of the regular books—and we’ll begin with one of the earliest events and end with one in his later life.

And so we are moving toward Leviathan, the last book in the Matthew Corbett series. It will be set in Italy and will involve—must involve—the worst of the worst that Matthew has yet to face. As someone from the realm of the past tells Matthew in The King of Shadows: “I have a feeling that Professor Fell will seem as a kindly old uncle bouncing baby Corbett on his knee when you meet who’s waiting for you in the future. Because take it from me, my boy…the worst is yet to be.”

You can take that as truth, because the person who tells this to Matthew is none other than Tyranthus Slaughter, returned from the dead.

So…on we go!

Publication of The King of Shadows is probably not going to be until early in 2022, but I hope you’ll feel the wait was worth it when you read the book. Until then, I’ll be working on Seven Shades of Evil and putting Leviathan together.

I hope everyone has a happy summer, and thank you again for your readership and support. I’m certain that in some other realm Matthew and his companions wholeheartedly thank you as well!

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

I see a lot of complaints from people that they can’t find some of the Matthew Corbett books in physical book editions. As of now, all of the books are available in physical formats.

I’ve put together a page that lists online sources from which physical book editions of all of the Matthew Corbett books can be purchased. There are other places that may have some books, but I have verified that these links are valid and active as of this posting. I will try to maintain the links going forward.

Sources for the Matthew Corbett books

Subterranean Press posted this on their website this morning:

We’re shipping the Signed Limited Edition of Robert McCammon’s The River of Souls, which includes the novel proper, illustrations not in the trade hardcover, and an 11,000 word bonus story that won’t be available anywhere else for at least two years. The limited is 97% sold out, so don’t hold back if you’re interested in a copy.

In the meantime, here’s an interview with Rick we’ve been holding back until the Limited Edition shipping started:

Kealan Patrick Burke: In The River of Souls, the fifth book in your Matthew Corbett series, when we meet Matthew, he is somewhat unmoored, lonely, lamenting the loss of love, an intentional sacrifice to keep those he cares about out of harm’s way. And by the end of the novel, this caution is revealed not to be unfounded. Do you ever see him finding a way back to love despite the inherent and obvious danger?

Robert McCammon: Well, first of all there are five books yet to go in the series. I will say that I know what the series is about, I know how it will end and I know what the last line will be…but I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to get there and I don’t want to be sure. I want the series to be a surprise to me. I have faith in my ability to guide it to a good conclusion, but I don’t want to have every step mapped out. If you’re asking if Matthew will have more romantic encounters, that is certainly true. And if Berry will come back into the series…certainly true again.

KPB: We are introduced in the novel to the memorable character, Magnus Muldoon, who though initially an antagonist, becomes for Matthew an invaluable ally. Given your penchant for revisiting some of the more memorable characters in Corbett’s world, is it safe to say that we should expect to see more of this wonderful character in the future?

RM: As I stated above, I don’t know. I have no idea who will show up in future books or who will die…this series just happens. Will Magnus return? Not sure, but you can be sure that there will be more characters equally as interesting as Magnus.

KPB: Given the period in which these books are set, it is no surprise that superstition plays a large role in the proceedings, perhaps never more so than in Speaks the Nightbird. How much of the swamp-lore and the vicious tribe who dwell there is based on real superstition, or did you develop it all yourself for the purposes of the book?

RM: Part of The River of Souls is based on the lore of the Bell Witch, from Tennessee, and also from local Alabama lore. The “creature” is based on stories told in a small town very near to my hometown. And a lot of it comes from my imagination, too. It just seems “right”.

KPB: Speaking of superstition, and in particular the horrific incident midway through the book in which you employ a rather macabre sporting event, have you considered writing an outright horror novel featuring Matthew Corbett, or is the supernatural something you prefer to keep to your non-series novels?

RM: I think “creepy”, “spooky” and “horrific” can be applied to the Corbett series but I’m not sure I want to go deeper into what we call the supernatural. I will say, though, that clues were planted in both The Queen of Bedlam and The Providence Rider that lead to a situation that might be called “supernatural”. It involves a book. A book that shows up in both Bedlam and Providence Rider. There’s a lot going on in this series that won’t be fully clear until we get into the final phase.

KPB: The River of Souls is fairly different in structure to the other books, in that, rather than have the plot involve the decoding of an intricate and elaborate mystery, the villain is revealed rather early and the book focuses more on the hunt, the swamp as a character, and all the evils it hides. The book is also the shortest in the series thus far. Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration for The River of Souls, and whether it was a conscious choice to move away from the idea of the mystery being the propelling force behind the story?

RM: Actually I was going through a rough time in my personal life and I wanted to live some of that out through Matthew. He was my “sin-eater”. Also my role-model. He can take whatever is thrown at him and keep going. Of course he’s going to be changed in some way and that’s what life is about, but Matthew is an ultimate survivor. So The River of Souls was more about endurance than mystery.

KPB: How much research do you typically do when preparing a Corbett novel to ensure that you authentically represent both the period and detail?

RM: I did reams of research for both Speaks the Nightbird and The Queen of Bedlam, so unless I have a specialized situation I can coast for a little while on my research. If something comes up that I need to find out about, I know where to look. I also have to say that I’ve embellished the times a little bit…cleaned them up some, because there was so much disease, pestilence and plague in that era there would be no time for handling anything else. My research on that era tells me there was no word for “joy” but many words for “sorrow”. It was truly a very rough, heartbreaking and soul-wrenching time. I am in awe that this country and the cities in it exist, to be perfectly honest. How humans overcame the swamps, the primeval forest, the diseases and all the other hardships of that time…it’s amazing and really incredible.

KPB: Much like the miasmic swamp, the pall of series antagonist Professor Fell looms large over The River of Souls, and by the book’s end you set the stage for a reckoning. As the next book is a ways off yet, and without giving too much away, how much of that coming story do you already know, and can you tease us with an idea of what to expect?

RM: Again, clues have been already delivered that will come to fruition in the next book. I do know what the story will be and a lot of what will happen, but certainly not all of it. I do know we go to England in the next book, and the rest of the series will probably take place in Europe. And of course Professor Fell will be a large character in the next book…we may even find out who he really is and what he looks like. If indeed “he” is not really a woman who’s been hiding behind the image of a man.

KPB: As with the other books in the series that Subterranean has published, The River of Souls features typically evocative cover art and illustrations by the wonderful Vincent Chong. Obviously, it’s critical that the representations of your characters are accurate. How closely do you work with Mr. Chong to achieve the desired result?

RM: I don’t really work with Vincent that closely but he always does a great job. I love the idea of using a “weapon” of some kind on the covers. I’m always pleased to see Vincent’s work, it’s excellent.

KPB: Included in the limited edition of The River of Souls is “The Scorpion’s Eye”, a fun novelette featuring another series character, the roguish master-thief, Minx Cutter. The story has an adventurous, almost pulp-fiction feel to it. Have you considered writing more of these standalone tales, perhaps featuring other characters from the series?

RM: I was planning on doing next a book of short stories and novelettes about other cases Hudson and Matthew have handled. I’ve dropped mention of other cases they’ve been on in the books, such as “The House At The End Of The World”, “Night Ride” and the complications of a romance between a colonist and an Indian maiden that would be titled “Love Is A Walk Through Fire”. I was going to do this as the sixth book in the series, but I don’t think I can let readers hang so long with Matthew in his current predicament. So…that has to be for later, if ever.

KPB: It also takes a dramatic and unexpected turn into horror, perhaps even science fiction territory midway through. Is there any chance that we might see more of the accursed “object”, or other treasures from Xavier Dreadson’s macabre collection?

RM: Ha! Good idea. Who knows what else Dreadson had in that house, and who’s got hold of those things now. I may play with that one. Other “objects” may show up in the possession of…well, we’ll see.

KPB: Now that she has been incorporated into the Herrald Agency, how big a role will Minx Cutter play in the next Matthew Corbett book?

RM: That I don’t know yet. For sure, Minx is a very interesting character. But be assured there will be plenty more, and a lot yet to come. And when we get to the end and people realize what Professor Fell is searching for, and why…I think the destination will definitely be worth the journey.

KPB: Thanks so much for your time, Mr. McCammon!

RM: You’re welcome, and thank you.

Subterranean Press’s Gwenda Bond discussed The Providence Rider in a three-part interview with Robert McCammon. You can read the interview on the Subterranean Press site:

Back in 2010, Subterranean Press also posted an interview with Robert McCammon in which he discussed Mister Slaughter. You can find a PDF of that interview here.

 

  • The map that Robert McCammon references when he’s writing about Matthew Corbett’s adventures can be found on the new Maps page. A map of New England from 1708 can also be found there.

 

  • A larger version of the scan of a 1702 issue of The Earwig, recently unearthed by Subterranean Press, can be found on the Multimedia page.
  • Robert McCammon will be participating in this year’s Read Alabama! program at Bevill State Community College in Jasper, AL, along with other Alabama authors.Daily Mountain Eagle article about Read Alabama!On Tuesday, March 16, 2010, at 4 PM, Robert McCammon will give a brief talk and will sign copies of Mister Slaughter and his previous novels. The event will take place at Bevill Auditorium on the campus of Bevill State Community College. Admission is free to the presentation and to the preceding reception at 3:30 PM.