Greetings to everyone on the list – especially the many new readers who’ve joined us in the last few weeks. Hope you all had a good New Year and the weather hasn’t been effecting too many of you – I know that some of our Canadian friends have not had an easy time with the dreadful ice-storms. Edinburgh’s winter continues to be mostly very mild, but the Highlands have recently had a lot of snow and up in Orkney they had 6 foot snow drifts, all the electricity cut off for a few days, and temperatures of minus 16 C at the beginning of the week.

This edition of the newsletter is basically to tell you about the forthcoming paperback edition of Caprice and Rondo, which was announced recently, and to let you know about the redesign of the web pages. It’s the latter that’s been taking up all my time recently as I’m in the middle of a complete revamp for our 150th anniversary in April and the possibility of an expansion of the search facilities to include the contents of Books in Print.

If you go to the home page (www.jthin.co.uk/) rather than straight to the Dunnett page you’ll see that we now use a framed system for easier navigation, although I’ve tried to make sure that you can still use the site without frames if necessary. At the moment most of the contents are still as before in terms of style, but I’ll gradually be changing things to better match the frame style. Do let me know what you think of it and if you have any problems that I can correct in the design.

Caprice and Rondo

The hardback is now into its third reprint and copies are in short supply – although the reprint should be ready by the end of this month. The first paperback version has now been announced – as was the case with To Lie with Lions there will be a Michael Joseph trade paperback edition which is due to be published on 28th May priced at UKP 11.95 ISBN 0718140826 We’ve ordered copies and anyone who wants it can use the StockSearch system on the web pages as usual, or send an email to Craig on orders@jthin.co.uk

I also asked about the Penguin paperback when I was in touch with MJ, but it looks as if that will not be available until next year.

“Questions for Dorothy”

I’ve collected the questions that have been sent in so far and passed them to Dorothy to compile answers. Once I get them back I’ll post them on the web page and here in the newsletter. I’ve been surprised at the quite small number so far – either you all know all the answers already or you’re too modest to speak up 😉 Perhaps once you see the first batch you’ll be emboldened to send in a few more, novice readers like me want to see as many as we can!!

One peripheral item of news that I meant to include in the last newsletter concerned the possible casting of an actor to play Lymond should there ever be a film or TV series. I know that this is a popular discussion item with many of you, and of course Dorothy herself did once mention that she was rather inclined towards a young Peter O’Toole when she started the series. Of the modern actors I find it hard to imagine an American playing the part having heard too many rather odd attempts at a Scottish accent, and have always thought it should be someone with more home connections. It was therefore very interesting to hear that Jason Connery – son of the one and only Sean – has bought a cottage in the borders area and is moving into it with his family as their permanent home. As anyone who saw the second series of the Robin of Sherwood TV series a few years ago will know, Jason very definitely has the hair colouring to play Francis and as an added Dunnett connection he has also recently appeared in the title role in a Scottish film production of Macbeth.

Another news item that caught my eye in the “Scotland on Sunday” newspaper last week was a report that the Mayor of Moscow is pushing ahead with a search of underground tunnels in an attempt to find the legendary jewel-encrusted library of Tsar Ivan IV, who of course had a fairly major role in Ringed Castle. The library – no-one really knows whether it exists or not – was reported to have come originally from Byzantium.

I’ll skip my impressions of the Lymond series this time around as I’ve been stuck near the end of Ringed Castle for the last three weeks. Too busy both at work and running the chess club to read anything properly since New Year, and I think I’ll have to back-track a few chapters and re-jig the memory on some of the political and trading intrigues. And of course re-reading the scene at the Revels will be enjoyable in itself!!

best wishes to you all

Bill