When Warner Books - now, of course, known to one and all as Grand Central Publishing - first announced that Janet Evanovich and Stephen Cannell would be joining forces for a new series, it did so with a few hiccups. The deal was first posted, then taken back down, then put back again. It seemed a minor point, something to forget about - not a harbinger of things to come.

Earlier this month, Sarah Wendell at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books got a tip from an anonymous reader wondering why Evanovich's site, after trumpeting the upcoming collaboration, no longer mentioned the book anywhere. Anonymous had read chapter one, posted on June 1, and when she went back on July 1, there was no chapter two - or chapter one, for that matter. And things got even stranger. "If you type "no chance" site:evanovich.com into a Google search, there's remnants of quite a few pages - but they're all 404s," reported the tipster. "Meanwhile, Cannell used to have it on his news page, home page and appearances page - those mentions are gone, too." An excerpt was still available on Cannell's website as of July 9, and is now, but that's about it.

And that's about all we'll see, thanks to Wendell's update yesterday. According to her source at an unnamed Big Box Bookstore, "the Evanovich/Cannell novel NO CHANCE has 'no chance' of being published. The book has been canceled with no date for rescheduling." When reached for comment yesterday evening, Evanovich confirmed the news. "Steve [Cannell] and I ran into scheduling problems," she said by email. "We still have an active partnership but the project is on hold right now. As of right now we haven't a publishing date." Interestingly, the Amazon page remains active, though that may not be for much longer...