Jere the author ...

Imagine my pleasant surprise getting this email today:

Hall of Fame Press to Publish Red Sox Mystery

Hall of Fame Press is proud to announce that it will be publishing in 2008 a Red Sox mystery authored by acclaimed mystery novelist Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and her son Jere Smith. For Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, it will be her 10th book and will feature the return of Rocky Patel, the Boston homicide detective who first appeared in her novel SHE SMILED SWEETLY. Jere Smith is a fourth-generation Red Sox fan and first-generation Red Sox blogger. This book is the first in a planned series of baseball mysteries to be written by the Smiths and published by Hall of Fame Press.

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith has published nine books since 1985. Following the success of her acclaimed memoir, GIRLS OF TENDER AGE, which NPR named one of "The Year's Best Books: Mystery and Nonfiction," she welcomes a return to mystery, and to Boston cop Rocky Patel. Smith is currently working on a Civil War novel and one of her main characters is Captain Abner Doubleday, First United States Artillery, Fort Sumter, 1860-1861, who may have invented baseball after all. She has lived in Connecticut all her life except for the two years she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon.

Jere Smith spent the first 29 years of his life in the one county in New England that gets the Yankees on TV, but not the Red Sox. He's got a 10-game plan at Fenway and regularly travels to watch the Sox in other cities. In 2005, he moved to Manhattan where he wore his Sox cap proudly, and worked with the elderly. He's written about the Red Sox on his own time since April 2004 on his blog, "A Red Sox Fan from Pinstripe Territory" ( letsgosox.blogspot.com). He recently moved to the Boston area, where he has fulfilled his life-long dream of getting to see the Red Sox on TV every night.

Dan Doyle, Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for International Sport ( http://www.internationalsport.com/ ) at the University of Rhode Island, conceived Hall of Fame Press with the objective of publishing high-quality sport-themed books. "Mary-Ann Tirone Smith is one of the most respected mystery writers in America," Doyle said. "The Red Sox mystery will be the first in what we plan to be a series of annual baseball mysteries written by the Smiths. One of the many exciting aspects of this announcement is the notion of an annual 'rite of summer' in the form of a first-rate baseball mystery. The series will bring much joy to thousands of baseball fans and other readers. It will also be great fun to see which franchise Mary-Ann chooses each summer as the base for that summer's mystery."

So, where do I sign up to preorder this book? Reading Jere's blog for more than a year now, I must say I can't wait to read this book ...