Roy Karlak is the author of sixteen novels, including the five bestselling Leo James/Harriet Hotchkiss mysteries, which began with Get It Right in 2002 and continued on through Get It Done, Get It Together, Get It Sorted, and Get It On. The last of these, originally published in 2017, was significantly more lurid that its predecessors, with at least thirty scenes that chronicled explicit sexual activity between the two detectives, who had previously been depicted as only good friends and possibly even first cousins. Karlak’s readers were taken aback by the radical shift in both tone and plot, not to mention the extensive dirty talk employed by both detectives during the sexual act, and the publisher received more than ten thousand letters of disbelief or anger. “I have read every book in this series,” read one representative letter, “and now I will read them again, with gasoline and a match.” Another letter echoed this sentiment: “Cancel my subscription,” it read, though the novels were not available via subscription. Stung, Karlak reworked Get It On significantly, eliminating all scenes of what he called “Leo and Harriet electing each other to office” along with any mentions of their intimate relationship. The result of his revision was a significantly shorter book, one of only fifty pages rather than three hundred and fifty, and one in which the murder that furnishes the central mystery is solved three pages after it is discovered. Readers disliked that version almost as much, and the series came to an abrupt end.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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