I’ve just received what has to be a first, or for me personally, I know it is. As perhaps you already know, Berkley is in the process of publishing a new mystery series by “debut” author Sarah D’Almeida, beginning with Death of a Musketeer, in which Alexander Dumas’s famous characters, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan, add sleuthing duties to their usual ones of romantic adventure and royal intrigue. Yes, indeed, the Three Musketeers are back.

   That’s hardly surprising. Over the past ten years or so mystery writers have been using the talents of loads of other fictional characters as detectives — even those you would never think of as a detective — and plenty of real life notables from the past as well. Who is there, if I may ask, who lived at the same time as Sherlock Holmes, fictional or otherwise, who hasn’t yet been involved in a case with the great detective?

    No, what’s unusual is the promotional item for the book that came in today’s mail. I didn’t get the book today– it came out in November, and it’s stacked somewhere in my TBR pile — but what I did get is a short preview of the story in comic book form. It’s six pages long, and the art is by Rob Dumuhosky. To my eye, it’s very well done. It may come out too small to be readable, but I think you can get a fairly good idea of what it looks like from the image below.

    For a better look at the artist’s work, go here.

    When I referred to the author of this new series in my first paragraph up above, I put the word debut in quotes. A little googling quickly reveals that Sarah D’Almeida is in reality well-known fantasy writer Sarah A. Hoyt. This is not surprising. It’s only a short step from constructing a world of pure fantasy to writing a novel taking place in the past. The skills involved are pretty much the same. In either case, the task is to take the reader into another world that he or she is unfamiliar with, and be convincing about it.

     I haven’t read the book yet, so I can’t tell you how successful the author’s been in transforming the trio (plus one) into a group of working detectives, but the book does sound intriguing, and beyond a doubt, this is certainly the first comic book that I’ve received to promote one.

     And, oh yes, there were the usual bookmarks that came along with a small stack of the booklets, and — of course! — a small candy bar.

[UPDATE: 01-18-07] After seeing the post above, Sarah Hoyt emailed me and said:

I replied, wishing her well with the series and asking if I might post her comments as an update to this blog entry. Her response came right away:

To which I say, Sarah, please take a break from the keyboard every once in a while, will you? This is all terrific news. Congratulations on staying so busy!